Focus on poor health locally, statewide illuminates kids’ needs
This isn't about sticking with New Year's resolutions to use that new gym membership and drink more water instead of mocha frappes.
Those goals are worthwhile for individual health, for sure. Yet, the attention paid to the poor overall health of the Terre Haute community and much of Indiana should help illuminate more basic needs on a broader scope. and in many cases, the consequences of a community's weak health factors and behaviors affect kids the most.
Two important steps to improve the problem emerged this month. Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb asked the Indiana General assembly to significantly increase funding for county health departments and public health systems by $100 million in the first year of his proposed budget and $200 million in the second year. It would modernize services, bolster administration and data support, and replace outdated public health infrastructure, according to the report issued by his Indiana Governor's Public Health Commission.
Such an investment is long overdue. Indiana's funding of county public health departments ranks 45th in the nation, and the impact of the COVID19 pandemic on Hoosiers exposed the need for properly funding, staffing and equipping those departments.
Locally, the Terre Haute Chamber of Commerce's Health and Wellness Task Force has outlined a plan for better community health, focusing on nutrition, physical activity, behavior health and employer involvement through a network of partner companies and organizations.
The Chamber also announced Wednesday that the Terre Haute and Vigo County community have been designated an "Indiana Healthy Community" by the Wellness Council of Indiana.
Josh alsip, the Chamber's community engagement director, acknowledged the irony of the label, given the overall poor health of the city and county. The designation, rather, doesn't mean the community is healthy now, but signifies its determination to improve on the situation.
There is much to improve. The community's future relies on that progress. Youngsters growing up in an unhealthy environment now will either continue that struggle here as adults, or follow a healthier path to become good family leaders, workers, volunteers and neighbors. Terre Haute needs the latter. So do most places in Indiana beyond the affluent Indianapolis rim counties.
Imagine local kids growing up to live longer, more prosperous lives. That's not happening now. Hoosiers' life expectancy has been declining since 2010, from 77.5 years then to 76.5 today, two years shorter than the average american. Vigo Countians' average lifespan is just 75.4 years. Residents of other counties have even shorter average lifetimes. The difference between the Indiana counties with the longest and shortest life expectancies is nearly nine years, according to the governor's commission.
"This is clear evidence of the health disparities that exist across the state," the commission said in its report.
Folks living on the short-stick side of those disparities, like Hauteans, experience the results. "Our poor health inhibits our economic performance, weakens our communities and shortens the lives of too many Hoosiers," the report concluded. "This commission believes we can and must do better."
The youngest residents of Vigo County need that improvement to start immediately. They're growing up saddled with the low end of several of those health disparities.
No county in Indiana has a greater percentage of residents facing limited access to healthy foods than Vigo, according to the 2022 County Health Rankings and Roadmaps compiled annually by the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute. Twenty percent of Vigo Countians - 21,560 people - have low incomes and don't live close to a grocery store, the criteria for that calculation.
Vigo County has the highest rate of children living in poverty. Twenty-eight percent of local kids live in that situation, the Health Rankings show.
The infant mortality is particularly troublesome here. Vigo County ranks sixth-highest, with nine deaths among infants under 1 year old per 1,000 live births.
The childcare cost burden in Vigo County is the state's fifth heaviest. The average household with two children spends 24% of its income on childcare.
This community struggles with health problems and behaviors among adults, too, from the fourth-highest sexually transmitted infections rate to a rising premature death rate (people who die before age 75). Statewide, and here, the Governor's Commission also noted rising alcohol- and drug-related deaths and suicides, adult and childhood obesity rates, high rates of adult and teen vaping, and persistent risks from infectious diseases like measles, hepatitis, tuberculosis, HIV and AIDS, and COVID-19.
Remedies implemented for kids, though, can help prevent them from battling those adult health problems. and remedies exist. Those include increasing the number or school nurses, counselors and psychologists; school breakfast programs; school and preschool health screenings; school-based health centers; childhood injury and violence prevention initiatives; and school fruit and vegetable gardens, among others recommended by the Governor's Commission and the UW Public Health Institute.
Of course, such steps come at a cost. But the consequences of allowing a poor health atmosphere to persist in a community, or state, carry a heavier cost.