Lack of access to care among health-study concerns
Jefferson County's top health concerns have been identified as high chronic disease rates, a lack of access to quality health care and poor physical education and nutrition.
Those concerns were picked from the state's top-10 prevention agenda list after state data was compiled and a 615-person survey among residents of Jefferson and Lewis counties was completed to help set goals for the 2010-13 community health assessment.
Stephen A. Jennings, Jefferson County Public Health Service information officer, said another health assessment will be required in 2013, but the agency will submit an annual performance report each year until then to track progress.
He said all too often people don't see the global view of health care and how personal choices lead to problems not only for an individual, but also for a team of health professionals.
"Like with people who use tobacco, we're going to take care of them when they get really sick, and we want to prevent that," Mr. Jennings said. "The same goes for obesity, and we're worried about diabetes. That's an epidemic, and we want to change that."
The health assessment reported that chronic disease indices are often tied to personal behaviors such as tobacco use, poor nutrition and lack of physical activity. Cancer, heart disease, diabetes and respiratory disease have been identified as common chronic diseases among Jefferson County residents.
According to Table 10 of the 2010-13 community health assessment, nearly one-third of adults residing in Jefferson County are obese, and 9 percent of pre-schoolers are obese as well.
Mr. Jennings said solutions such as diet and exercise may sound like simple remedies, but there are barriers to those solutions such as the high cost of fresh fruits and vegetables, and accessibility to safe walkways such as sidewalks and trails.
Top priorities are difficult to manage when people can't access quality health care, Mr. Jennings said. According to the health assessment, "goals are to increase the number of adults covered by health insurance, increase the number of needed providers, and decrease the number of adults who deferred or declined medical care due to cost."
Before children and adults reach the point of chronic disease, poor physical activity and nutrition, he said, there should be a focus on prevention from those categories instead of spending dollars on treatment later.
"I think you're going to see more dollars going into prevention," Mr. Jennings said. "With everything now it's about cost-cutting and efficiencies."
The more partnerships that are developed, the stronger communities will be in making changes happen, he said. That's where a $184,658 grant from the state Department of Health's Health Care Efficiency and Affordability Law for New Yorkers, or HEAL NY, comes in.
Awarded a year ago, the grant paid for the community health assessment study and now will bring health care facilities together to target one indicator as the ultimate priority.
"The sense of the group is if we worked on one indicator we could make an impact," Mr. Jennings said.
The idea, he said, is that a team approach will be more efficient because it will get area organizations and agencies on the same page, versus separate efforts that aren't focused.
"This is really a seed to greater things," Mr. Jennings said.
Jefferson County residents can visit the agency's Web site to view the community health assessment and offer their feedback.
ON THE NET
Jefferson County Community Health Assessment:
www.ncsteps.org
