Healthcare Organizations and University

Lifestyle Profile of the Neighborhood of University of Illinois Hospital

Marketing research represents a crucial business activity, since it helps identify factors such as consumer characteristics, market size and nature, and nature of rivals, which ascertain a corporation's ability to succeed. This is generally connected with the activity of market segmentation, performed for distinguishing the diverse customer groups. This paper will offer a lifestyle profile of University of Illinois (UI) Hospital's neighborhood.

UI Health, which forms a division of the UIC (University of Illinois at Chicago), offers inclusive health care, research and education services to Illinois State residents, as well as those of other states. It includes a clinical business, which encompasses a tertiary care organization with a capacity to house 495 inpatients, 22 outpatient healthcare organizations, and a dozen Federally-Qualified MSHCs (Mile Square Health Centers). UI Health's PSA (Primary Service Area) covers two dozen neighboring localities. These PSAs are called community areas in the city of Chicago. UI hospital and a majority of its dozen MSHCs are situated in this zone (University of Illinois Health, 2016).

Research Method

UNISON Health (short for UI Survey on Neighborhood Health) was a large-scale, advanced community healthcare requirement evaluation which entailed biometric testing and face-to-face interviews in its PSA. This survey was performed in the College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs of the UIC, by its Survey Research Lab, and encompassed a random community-member sample from the two dozen localities in its PSA. A total of 454 adult subjects were enrolled via stratified probability study sampling. This sample included participants aged between 18 years and over 60 years, and was fairly representative of UI Health's two dozen community areas, having similar ethnic and racial composition. Survey questions, available in English as well as Spanish, inquired into respondents' health behaviors, accessibility and usage of healthcare services, quality of life (QOL) indicators, and disease prevalence (University of Illinois Health, 2016).

UNISON Health also gathered biometric information on respondents, including blood pressure readings, weight and height, for measuring at least a small quantity of genuine health indicators. This information was, for instance, capable of revealing significant disparities between undiagnosed and diagnosed hypertension within the community, in addition to the extent of regulated blood pressure in hypertension patients (University of Illinois Health, 2016).

Databases and Findings

Demographic Characteristics

Although Chicagoan racial segregation has witnessed a decline in the last ten years, some localities within the city continue to witness high segregation. Minority group-dominated neighborhoods (i.e., largely Black, Asian or Hispanic localities) are usually faced with economic and social challenges. All but three PSA communities of UI Health have a more-than-three-quarters minority population (University of Illinois Health, 2016).

UI Health PSA communities are some among the neediest in the Chicago area. The median family income of as many as 83% of these localities is less than 47,408 dollars, which is the Chicago average. The median family income of the Largely-Black Fuller Park community is 15,516 dollars (University of Illinois Health, 2016).

Additionally, several PSA communities are characterized by lower educational attainment levels and relatively high joblessness, in comparison to the city average. All but four PSA communities have more individuals who are, at most, high school graduates, in comparison to the city average. Lastly, in all but three UI Health PSA communities, joblessness is higher compared to the total city average (University of Illinois Health, 2016).

Health Trends

According to the survey, a considerable proportion of individuals (twenty-four percent), from the community's UI Health services, lack health insurance. In terms of ethnicity/race, 30% Hispanics, 23% Blacks, and 16% Whites residing in these areas are uninsured. Focus group respondents mentioned further obstacles to healthcare access, including limited mental health centers, scarce awareness and education with regard to the kind of care to seek, and lack of consistent transportation sources to get to healthcare organizations. Such obstacles place considerable hardships on the communities' disease control capacity and the capacity of consistently accessing healthcare whenever required (University of Illinois Health, 2016).

The survey identified obesity, joint pain, diabetes, coronary heart disease, hypertension, asthma, and elevated cholesterol levels as the most common health problems among PSA residents. In a majority of cases, these health issues are more prevalent in the PSA, as compared to the rest of the nation. The survey reveals that the PSA has doubled the amount of smokers as compared to the national figure. This figure is largely because of higher smoking prevalence in the Black (40%) and Hispanic (25%) communities residing in the PSA (University of Illinois Health, 2016).

Strategies you could use to segment your market

Geographic Segmentation

Geographic criteria such as zip codes and locality names are employed for defining market segments. This geo-cluster segmentation approach integrated geographic and demographic information for creating more precise individual consumer profiles.

Demographic Segmentation

Such segmentation involves division of an enterprise's market on the basis of variables like nationality, race, gender, age, occupation, income, family size, religion and educational level.

Psychographic Segmentation

Psychographic segmentation divides the market on the basis of individuals' personality, lifestyle, social class, and values (Boundless, 2016).

How does this profile provide you with insight on how the people in this area perceive your organization?

Although several individuals recognize the organization's valuable role in delivering healthcare services of high quality, a considerable share of people continue to maintain that it must do a lot more. They assert that there is a significant need for the organization to provide its customers with transportation assistance, income support, employment, housing, and various other social services. They are of the opinion that our organization's efforts are lacking in the area of linking patients to comprehensive healthcare. Therefore, they recommend identification of high-risk inpatients at the UI Hospital, employment of the services of community healthcare workers, and a peer-headed telephone information line for increasing social support as well as improving the organization's self-efficacy when it comes to connecting its patients with diverse community-based facilities' and UI Health's healthcare resources (University of Illinois Health, 2016).