Foundation for a Healthy St. Petersburg unveils new report

To educate the public on the findings of its recent South St. Pete Health Equity Profile, the Foundation for a Healthy St. Petersburg hosted a Data Walk event at its Center for Health Equity. Approximately 75 community members had the opportunity to engage with staff, researchers and peers Feb. 26 about the report’s findings and recommendations, which were displayed on screens around the room.

The Foundation holds Data Walks throughout the year to engage community members in a “multisensory experience” of its research reports. These walks provide an opportunity to expand, challenge and connect learnings on both an individual and community level, and to move from strategy into collective action.

Using both numerical and descriptive data, the report focused on the health, economic and social state of South St. Petersburg, with a hyperlocal focus on zip codes 33705, 33711 and 33712. The purpose of the report is to provide recommendations for creating healthy and resilient communities, to better understand residents’ perception of community and personal health, and to inform  strategic planning for the Foundation for a Healthy St. Pete.

The report revealed disparities at different levels and within different populations across the city and the state. Research showed that while the average life expectancy for Floridians is 78.5 years, St. Pete’s life expectancy is slightly lower at 76.9, a disparity due to the low life expectancy in St. Pete’s Black residents, who live on average to 72.8 years old.

The authors uncovered significant racial differences in access to food, transportation and housing across South St. Pete. While 31% of white residents reported limited access to healthy and nutritious food,  more than double the number of Black residents (66%) reported food vulnerability.

Focus groups provided more descriptive and nuanced data. Health insurance and neighborhood safety were named in every group as top priorities, and emerging themes across all groups included the need for support around economic stability, food security access to care and health resources, chronic disease prevention, injury and violence prevention, and housing affordability.

Though many opportunities for change and reform were identified in the report, the research also uncovered numerous strengths rooted in the community. “We didn’t want to just focus on deficits, since that’s what happens in reports like this,” said Dr. Susie Paterson, director of Research, Evaluation and Learning. “A lot of times we look at under-resourced communities, and we tend to focus on the negative, that there’s these disparities, there’s these gaps that exist, but it’s important to highlight that there’s also so many opportunities for change to help inform and shape that work.”

According to the report, community assets in South St. Pete include a growing number of workforce development programs, an increase in affordable housing units and rental assistance, and significant improvements in graduation rates. High levels of community engagement in decision-making, a collective investment in community health and effective use of community feedback were identified as additional strengths in the South St. Pete area.

Participant engagement is a cornerstone of the report. Using a community power building framework to generate community-driven solutions, data was generated through partner interviews, focus groups, community mapping and surveys to understand what previous interventions had been successful in these neighborhoods. “This part was important,” the report reads, “because a lot of work has been done to identify and understand both what is needed and what is working in South St. Pete, and intentionally incorporating this prior work into the process is a way to recognize that work, build on the existing foundation of knowledge, and engage with residents without being duplicative of other efforts.”

Paterson underscored the importance of engaging community with events like Data Walks. “The people who are closest to the issues should be the ones defining what the problem is,” she explained. “We [the Foundation for a Healthy St. Petersburg] can help because we have a lot of resources to be able to do that, so we want to make sure that people feel empowered to use that research. Data Walks are meant to be like a conversation. Data should be a conversation.”

Click here for the full South St. Pete Health Equity Study.