The Shelby health enigma

AN EFFECTIVE HEALTH MESSAGE

SHELBY COUNTY MAYOR Mark Luttrell put the health situation in Memphis and Shelby County in perspective.

Talking to a member of The Commercial Appeal’s editorial board Tuesday, Luttrell said:

“One of the things that became evident to me is that we are a wealthy community when it comes to our various medical facilities.

“But we are very poor in dealing with health issues that affect people’s lives.”

Memphis and the region are plagued by seemingly intractable health issues that lead to chronic ailments, which could be prevented with early intervention. Chief among those are childhood obesity and Type 2 diabetes.

The conundrum Luttrell described is what prompted the mayor to launch the Healthy Shelby initiative. The hope is that the initiative will improve the health of residents and reduce the cost of medical care.

Similar efforts have been launched here in the past with a lot of fanfare and marginal, if any, positive results. But maybe this initiative will be different .

For one thing, it is on the agenda of Memphis Fast Forward, a community program that has had success focusing on economics, crime reduction and education. Fast Forward grew out of Memphis Tomorrow, an association of the chief executive officers of Memphis’ largest enterprises.

While those executives have demonstrated they care about the well-being of Memphis, they also have a selfinterested reason for wanting the initiative to work: Workers who suffer from preventable illnesses negatively impact productivity and add to health insurance costs.

The city’s four largest and competitive hospitals — Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare, Baptist Hospital, the Regional Medical Center at Memphis and Saint Francis Healthcare — also are involved, along with the Church Health Center and the Health Department.

Between those entities and a host of others that are involved in Healthy Shelby, maybe they can make this health educational message stick:

Residents can improve their long-term quality of life by living a healthy lifestyle.

The second part of that message, and one that eventually impacts all of our pocketbooks, is that more efficient ways need to be found to provide early management of illnesses that lead to chronic maladies, which require expensive treatments.

Luttrell has faith that the initiative will be successful. He cited the positive results of the longrunning campaign to educate citizens about the dangers of smoking.

Let’s hope the mayor is right. We’ll all win if Healthy Shelby can successfully educate the public about living a healthy lifestyle.