Assessing Health Needs in NYC’s Rockaways

A team of seven SIPA students advised by Professor Eva Weissman is conducting a health needs assessment in the Rockaway peninsula, an area of New York City that is experiencing one of the most difficult recoveries in the wake of 2012’s Hurricane Sandy.

The project is part of a Capstone Workshop that has paired the SIPA team with client Médecins du Monde (Doctors of the World), an international humanitarian organization that provides emergency and long-term medical care to vulnerable populations. The organization opened a free health clinic in the Rockaways in 2013 to help remedy the shortage of healthcare services available after the devastating hurricane.

The students are using their training in statistics, development practice, and public health to design and deploy a survey that will assess the health-related vulnerabilities of Rockaway residents post-Hurricane Sandy. They have mapped a statistically representative sample of households across the peninsula and aim to capture information about the residents’ concerns and barriers to healthcare access that still remain, more than a year after the hurricane. Currently, there is little public information about the scope of post-Sandy needs in the underserved urban communities of New York City. The capstone team’s goal is to provide useful data to inform health care interventions and advocacy efforts for Doctors of the World.

On March 8, the team worked with volunteers including community members from the Rockaway Youth Task Force to conduct the first round of door-to-door surveys and speak to residents across the peninsula. Local TV channel NY1 covered the event 

The final round of surveys will take place this weekend, on April 12, and the team will be presenting their final report in early May.

The team is recruiting volunteers to help canvass the Rockaways this weekend; further information is on Facebook.

— Doyeun Kim MIA ’14

Photos courtesy Suchi Mathur and Olivia Snarski