[DOWNLOAD] ~ Commentary: Health and Economics in the Mississippi Delta: Problems, Opportunities * by Journal of Health and Human Services Administration ~ eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free

eBook details

Title: Commentary: Health and Economics in the Mississippi Delta: Problems, Opportunities
Author : Journal of Health and Human Services Administration
Release Date : January 22, 2008
Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,Health, Mind & Body,Health & Fitness,
Pages : * pages
Size : 60 KB

Description

As the papers in this symposium make clear, health is a problem for the people of the Mississippi Delta. In their paper, Arthur Cosby and Diana Bowser cite data showing that mortality in the region, already among the highest in the U.S., is now improving at only half the rate of that for the U.S. more generally. Translating this into specific figures, they state that there were approximately 18,000 excess deaths in the Delta in 2004, "... deaths that would not have occurred had the region achieved the average rate of mortality experienced by the remainder of the nation." These authors go on to document that residents of the Delta are also more likely to have increased prevalences of elevated body mass indices, high blood pressure, diabetes mellitus, and smoking. It is, as they state, an "unhealthy place," a conclusion that is also supported by the data and analyses in the contributions by David Bloom and Diana Bowser and by Tonya Neaves and her associates. Of course, the health data cited in these papers, of necessity, tell only a part of the story, the "tip of the iceberg." Underlying the specific problems listed are a host of less visible issues including poor nutrition, infectious diseases, stress reactions, and mental health and behavioral dysfunctions that take much more from life, although, in some sense, more subtly or less obviously than cardiovascular disease and diabetes. In other words, there is a much higher human cost to living in an "unhealthy place" than traditional mortality and morbidity statistics convey.