For Public Health and Health Professions Research Day at the University of Florida, I connected with Peace4Tarpon (P4T) to look into some of the data they had been collecting since since early 2016. I did this as part of my final internship for the Master of Public Health program.
In surveys that Peace4Tarpon had been distributing through meetings and outreach, they had been collecting demographic information and ACEs data. ACEs have also been measured on a national scale through the 2010 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey (BRFSS) ACEs module. Using both samples, I wanted to determine ACEs prevalence collected through P4T outreach compared to the BRFSS, a nationally representative sample.
The results of this comparison were surprising. Based on those who provided demographic information, the P4T sample was mostly white, female, and between the ages of 30 and 49. Each ACE item had a higher prevalence in the P4T sample than in the BRFSS sample, which can be seen in the table below. Additionally, about 49% of individuals who completed the survey through Peace4Tarpon had four or more ACEs compared to 14% of individuals who completed the ACEs module of the BRFSS. From this information, I concluded that Peace4Tarpon is a key asset to Tarpon Springs, as the community and those who participate in outreach have high ACE scores. Those individuals are at a higher risk for negative health outcomes because many reported four or more ACEs, which is known to be the threshold for increased risk of many leading causes of death. There is a limitation to these conclusion though, as the data is from a self-selected sample of individuals who are aware of P4T and may know more about ACEs than the general population, This could also explain the high prevalence of ACEs in the P4T data compared to the BRFSS, a more nationally representative sample.
I also took this opportunity to look into the connection of each of the ACEs questions to appropriate resources available locally in Tarpon Springs and nationally through P4T. With about 150 local and national partners that work to reduce the negative effects of trauma and build resilience, it is important to understand which ACEs affect the community the most and what services the community provides for that trauma. By thematically coding P4T local and national partners based on the services they provide using information on their website, I determined that Peace4Tarpon connects individuals to partners who provide resources or services for the traumas of all 10 ACEs. "Basic needs” is the ACE question which P4T provides the highest number of resources for, which is necessary as they must be addressed before working with any of the other ACEs traumas. A limitation for this information is that the thematic coding of resource partners was done based on the information found on their websites, so further investigation into the services each partner provides could produce a change in number of resources available for each ACE.
These findings can help the community of Peace4Tarpon in the provision of services in addition to increasing awareness of the prevalence of ACEs and trauma in their community.
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