Health Trends of a Medically Underserved Population Attending an Annual Community Health Fair Throughout the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Background: The Mitchell Wolfson Sr. Department of Community Service (DOCS) is a medical student-run organization offering free healthcare to underserved patients in Florida via ten annual health fairs and four weekly clinics. The South Dade Health Fair (SDHF) serves a rural, migrant population with limited access to healthcare. This study analyzes the health metric trends of patients attending SDHF before and during the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, offering insight into strategies to improve future interventions.

Methods: SDHF was redesigned to maintain operations throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. De-identified data from three pre-pandemic fairs (2017-2019) and three during-pandemic fairs (2021-2023) were extracted from REDCap and analyzed in SPSS using independent samples t-tests (p<0.05). Key metrics included blood pressure (BP), glucose levels, body mass index (BMI), lipid profiles, and T-scores.

Results: Over six years, 394 patients received care across 467 encounters (291 pre-pandemic, 176 during-pandemic). Most attendees were females (71.1% pre-pandemic, 65.9% during-pandemic). Cohorts were demographically similar except for preferred language and health insurance type. In the during-pandemic cohort, there were significant increases in mean systolic BP (123.5 to 133.4), total cholesterol (176 to 188), low-density lipoprotein (99 to 108), and non-fasting glucose (94.1 to 124.6), and significant decreases in mean high-density lipoprotein (52 to 49) and T-score (0.01 to -0.81). There was a statistically insignificant trend toward an increase in mean BMI between the two cohorts. A sub-analysis of patients who attended pre- and during-pandemic fairs yielded similar results.

Conclusions: We successfully organized three student-run health fairs during the COVID-19 pandemic while ensuring patient safety and high-quality health care delivery. Data demonstrate statistically significant changes in parameters that portend worse cardiovascular outcomes in the aggregate cohort and amongst repeat patients. These findings suggest a need for interventions to address hypertension, diabetes, dyslipidemia, and osteoporosis in this community.