Burnside Gorge Health Assessment (BGHA) Survey
The purpose of the Burnside Gorge Health Assessment (BGHA) was to capture a “snapshot” of the overall health and wellbeing of individuals visiting the Burnside Family Medical Clinic. The information gathered can be used to develop a deeper understanding of health and well-being in the neighbourhood, while serving as baseline data to analyze changes as the community grows. The findings will be disseminated to community groups, agencies, service providers and policymakers in order to enrich their efforts to meet the needs of the diverse populations they serve. A related objective of the project was to develop and evaluate a process to rapidly assess the health of a neighbourhood.
To produce our “snapshot” of health and well-being, we sampled patients in a walk-in medical clinic in the Burnside Gorge neighbourhood. This allowed us to gain insight into the health and well-being of 499 individuals. Respondents answered questions drawn from the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) and tailored to BGHA research priorities. Selected results were then compared to the results of the broader health service delivery area. The BGHA project was a collaboration between the Community Council, Vancouver Island Health Authority (VIHA) Public and Population Health Observatory, and the Vancouver Island Public Interest Research Group (VIPIRG).