Award Date

8-1-2012

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Public Health (MPH)

Department

Environmental and Occupational Health

First Committee Member

Michelle Chino

Second Committee Member

Shawn Gerstenberger

Third Committee Member

Tim Bungum

Fourth Committee Member

Nancy Menzel

Number of Pages

98

Abstract

The elderly population (65 years of age and older) is one of the fastest growing populations in the US. A major public health concern involving the elderly population is unintentional injuries in the home. Since elderly adults typically spend the majority of their time in the home, minimizing unintentional home injury hazards is crucial for this population. The Nevada Healthy Homes Partnership (NHHP) program is a grant funded effort that helps to improve the quality and availability of safe and healthy homes in Nevada. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to determine the effectiveness of the NHHP program interventions in reducing home injury hazards among the elderly living in Southern Nevada and to compare visual observations with elderly perceptions of hazard reduction. A total of 23 participants that completed pre- and post-intervention home visits were included in this study. Wilcoxon signed rank test and McNemar's test were utilized to compare pre- and post-intervention visual observations and elderly perceptions of home injury hazards. Specificity, sensitivity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, and the phi coefficient (F) were obtained to determine the consistency between visual observations and elderly perceptions. There was a statistically significant change in fire hazards less than 1m (p=0.030) as measured by visual observations, and trip or fall hazards (p=0.039), smoke detector (p=0.003), fire extinguisher (p=0.002), and carbon monoxide detector (p0.001) as measured by questionnaire responses. Overall, the NHHP program is a vital program that reduces unintentional home injury hazard risks among the elderly living in Southern Nevada.

Keywords

Barrier-free design for older people; Domestic architecture for older people; Elderly perceptions; Healthy homes; Home accidents – Prevention; Home injury hazard risks; Nevada – Las Vegas; Older people – Wounds and injuries

Disciplines

Environmental Health | Other Architecture | Public Health

File Format

pdf

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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