Community action for health in socioeconomically deprived neighbourhoods in Barcelona: Evaluating its effects on health and social class health inequalities

Abstract Background The aim of this study was to analyse trends in several health-related indicators in socioeconomically deprived neighbourhoods in Barcelona with strong community action for health (CA), and compare them to neighbourhoods without such community action. A secondary goal was to analyse trends in socioeconomic inequalities in health in both types of neighbourhood. Methods We performed a quasi-experimental pre-post study using data from the Barcelona Health Surveys of 2001 and 2011. Our dependent variables were self-perceived health, mental health, previous drug use, and smoking cessation. We used Poisson regression with robust variance to calculate prevalence ratios (PR) and 95% Confidence Intervals (95% CI). Results The percentage of men who had ever used drugs decreased over time in neighbourhoods with strong CA (PR = 0.48; 95% CI:0.25–0.92, from 2001 to 2011), but not in neighbourhoods without CA (PR = 1.02; 95% CI:0.74–1.40). However, the prevalence of poor mental health among men increased more in neighbourhoods with strong CA than in neighbourhoods without CA (p-value = 0.025). Among women, social class inequalities in poor mental health and smoking cessation decreased over time in neighbourhoods with strong CA but not in neighbourhoods without CA. Conclusions Our study shows promising results regarding the effect of community action on health, particularly in terms of inequalities. Our results highlight the importance of allocating resources to implement and continuously evaluate CA initiatives.