Earle C. Chambers,
PhDJanuary 30, 2015 - BRONX, NY - A brief published in the American Journal of Public Health on January 20, 2015 by
Dr. Earle Chambers in a collaboration
including Einstein, Montefiore, and the Bronx District Office of the New York City
Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, describes their study incorporating public
health questions into Montefiore Medical Center’s electronic medical records
system.
The researchers' goal was to make medical records better able to indicate how
patients compared to the broader community regarding diet and physical activity.
Their approach allowed the researchers to directly compare answers collected by
neighborhood surveys against those given during routine outpatient visits at primary
health care centers in the Bronx.
Their data demonstrated that unhealthy behaviors
were higher among patients than the neighborhood population, which the researchers
suggest may reflect differences between those patients who seek out healthcare and
those who don’t.
Dr. Chambers is assistant professor of Family and Social Medicine and of
Epidemiology & Population Health.