Classifying high-prevalence neighborhoods for cardiovascular disease in Texas

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the number one cause of death in the state of Texas. In order to develop effective healthcare policies to combat CVD, it is essential to understand what types of communities are most affected. In this paper, we develop a classification scheme to segment high-prevalence communities based on selected social and demographic characteristics. We find that while many high-prevalence areas reflect traditional relationships between socioeconomic deprivation and poor health outcomes, a subset of more affluent communities in Texas are also affected. This suggests the importance of tailored approaches to prevention that account for this diversity among high-prevalence neighborhoods.