Hypertension in Nashville
A Project of Healthy Community Insights
For the past 20 years stakeholders from industry, nonprofits, higher education, faith communities, and local government have been working to address issues of health and health disparities in and around Nashville. There have been individual and institutional efforts, coalitions, programs, panels, working groups, councils, and research projects aimed at solving pressing community health challenges and related inequities.
What is the Dilemma?
This report addresses two related community problems. The first is the problem of hypertension—its prevalence and unequal distribution across the city. The second problem is the lack of a shared inventory of data and a collaborative platform from which to understand key insights around that unequal distribution. HCI chose hypertension as its initial focus due to the issue’s persistence as a leading contributor to mortality for Nashvillians, its widespread presence throughout the city, and the existence of community wherewithal to address it at this current moment.
Cases of Hypertension in the State of Tennessee
Annual Cost Spent on Hypertension for White
Individuals
Annual Cost Spent on Hypertension for Black Individuals
What Data was used?
Creating a Hypertension Control and Prevention "Prescription" for Nashville
Vanderbilt University School of Medicine
Let's take a look at the insights
* Data is from 2019, unless otherwise noted.
How do we turn this into Action?
Actionable next steps fall into three categories: EXPOSURE, INTERVENTION, and PREVENTION. Complex community issues must first be exposed as a problem through data and a narrative that gets to the root of the issue.
Exposure
“We recognize others’ efforts to address health challenges in Nashville and join them to strengthen collective capacity for change. The Belmont Data Collaborative provides data from its Data Warehouse at belmontdata.org and RoundTable, a mapping tool with relevant hypertension indicators and resources at different geographic levels. RoundTable empowers everyone with community-level data from Nashville and Tennessee.”
Intervention
To address health disparities, we must identify opportunities for change. Collaboration with healthcare professionals, data experts, government, and non-profits is essential. NashvilleHealth and Center for Non-Profit Management are fostering discussions on neighborhood health and economic disparities. A summit by Healthy Community Insights is planned for Fall 2022.
Prevention
Belmont students are analyzing BP data via the RISE program and the Belmont Data Collaborative. Additionally, a new online platform called Relight is allowing for collaboration on the issue. The Belmont Data Platform and report offer solutions for community health disparities.
