County, region still low in health rankings

It’s no secret that Southeast Kansas has not been highly rated according to the state’s health rankings. But that doesn’t mean that local officials don’t feel a little confounded each year when the rankings are released.

This year’s rankings were much like those of years past — with Crawford County and all of Southeast Kansas among the lowest quarter of the state’s counties in regard to overall health. Exactly 100 of the state’s 105 counties were ranked by the Kansas Health Institute under a series of criteria.

Crawford County ranked 88th out of the 100 measured counties in Health Outcomes, which includes categories such as premature death, poor health and low birthweight. The county came in 85th in Health Factors, which consists of various health behaviors, clinical care, socioeconomic factors and the relative healthiness of the physical environment. Both numbers are slightly better than last year, when the county ranked 89th in Health Outcomes and 87th in Health Factors.

Bourbon County, by comparison, was slightly better in Health Factors (84th) while worse in Health Outcomes (92nd). Cherokee County ranked 96th in both Health Outcomes and Health Factors. In fact, four southeast Kansas counties made up the bottom five of each category.

Janis Goedeke, Crawford County Health officer, said that the results were not surprising to her.

“We’ve known for a while that we are on the lower end of the rankings,” Goedeke said. “The problem we have is that we can try to change, but we can’t change anything by ourself. We have to have the community work with you. It will have to be an effort brought out by the entire community.”

The results broke down further, showing how Crawford County compares to the rest of the state. The data show that 17 percent
of adults in Crawford County report poor or fair health.

Two areas particularly stand out for the county’s results: obesity and children in poverty. Roughly 35 percent of the county’s adults are obese, according to the rankings. That’s 5 percent more than the state average and 10 percent more than the national benchmark. Further, 27 percent of the children in the county are below the poverty line, which is more than double the national benchmark of 13 percent and well above the state average of 18 percent.

“When you don’t have job opportunities in the community, you see poverty, and with poverty comes low health factors and behavior,” Goedeke said. “[An obesity rate of 35 percent] is bad, but it’s not new. It’s something we’ve been addressing. Addressing obesity is more than physical activity. We have to look at why people are obese. Are they not eating enough fruits and vegetables, are they not active enough? We need to address that, and we have to be comprehensive.”

Goedeke also talked about lowering the teen pregnancy rate, which is 47 births per 1,000 population, above the state average of 43 and well above the national benchmark of 22. She said education opportunities will help new mothers break barriers and attempt to break the poverty cycle.

In fact, the poverty cycle is often cited as one of the area’s biggest problems.

“People grow up in poverty, and it’s been so long that they begin to feel like that is normal,” Goedeke said. “It’s difficult to get to set their sights higher in life, because a lot don’t know that you can raise yourself out of that cycle you’ve lived in for so long, you don’t know there’s any other way of life out there.”

Goedeke said that a group of public health officers in the “Lower Eight” — a group of Southeast Kansas health officers from Cherokee, Crawford, Chautauqua, Elk, Labette, Neosho, Montgomery and Wilson counties — will be meeting April 20 in Chanute to do a regional health assessment, which will include county health data.

“We’re working as a region to work on what counties will look like in 10 years, and we’ll come back and work with them on what they see as a problem in the community,” Goedeke said. “We will try to address some of the things more easily tackled then look at the long-term issue of obesity and children in poverty.”

That project will dovetail nicely with another, Project 17. Project 17 is the group created by four state senators to address health and economic concerns with Southeast Kansas. Sen. Bob Marshall, R-Fort Scott, is among the founding four and said he was sad to see the new rankings.

“That’s one of the things we included in Project 17,” Marshall said. “That’s one of the four main issues we talked about was health. That’s why we put [Via Christi CEO] Randy Cason on the 4x16 committee to represent our district, because the health rankings are abysmal. Just about all of the bottom 10 are in Southeast Kansas.”

Marshall said that no matter what the problems are, there’s really only one solution, and it’s not a solution that is readily available in the region.

“It’s a terrible situation, but it takes one thing to handle it, and it’s money,” he said. “We’re counting on agencies to provide health care support for people who can’t afford it. When Medicaid starts becoming a problem, it jeopardizes the solution for the area.

“We’ve known all along we’re in the bottom. It’s something we’re trying to work on. We don’t have a silver bullet. We knew what we’re getting into, because of the information we had when we were starting Project 17; this is just newer rankings.”

Andrew Nash can be reached at andrew.nash@morningsun.net or by calling 231-2600 ext. 140.