Two thoughts after reviewing the latest key health indicators for Suffolk:

1. Our city is blessed to have organizations like the Obici Healthcare Foundation, the Suffolk Partnership for a Healthy Community and Western Tidewater Free Clinic, and their collective work is making a difference in health outcomes for Suffolk citizens.

2. Much hard work remains to ensure a healthy population and, in turn, a reliable workforce that keeps Suffolk economically prosperous in the decades and generations ahead.

Nancy Welch, interim director of the Western Tidewater Health District, shared a plethora of interesting data at a recent gathering of community leaders and stakeholders.

First, the encouraging:

• Suffolk beats the state average in percentage of residents under age 65 who are uninsured. Just 12.5 percent of Suffolkians in that age category were uninsured in 2012, the latest year for which data is available, compared with 14.2 percent of Virginia residents. And Suffolk’s percentage has fallen steadily from 13.9 percent in 2007. That’s good news for a number of important reasons, as uninsured people are more likely to suffer from chronic disease and are less able to manage those diseases.
• While adult obesity rates continue to rise in Suffolk and Virginia, obesity in children (tomorrow’s adults) appears to be declining locally. Gina Pitrone, executive director of the Obici Healthcare Foundation, reports that Suffolk public schools have observed a 1-percent decrease over two years in the Body Mass Index, or BMI, of its students. BMI is a measure of body fat based on height and weight, and high BMI in children bodes poorly for the future, as children who are overweight or obese as preschoolers are five times as likely as normal-weight children to be overweight or obese as adults. Pitrone credits, among other factors, the removal of fryers from school cafeterias and generally healthier meals that students are being served at school.
• Deaths from heart disease in Suffolk have fallen at a rate greater than the state average, which is also declining. In 2012, Suffolk’s age-adjusted rate of deaths from heart disease was 178 per 100,000 people, down 28 percent from 247.3 in 2006. The state average declined 17 percent during the same period.
• Cerebrovascular disease deaths, including strokes, are decreasing sharply, and Suffolk’s rate of 32.2 deaths per 100,000 people is, for the first time, better than the statewide rate of 40.7 deaths per 100,000.
• Suffolk has already attained a March of Dimes 2020 goal of 9.6 percent or fewer premature births, with a rate of 8.9 percent in 2012.
• Teen pregnancy has fallen from 35.4 per 1,000 girls in 2006 to 19.9 in 2012.
• Foremost, Suffolk’s ranking among 135 Virginia localities in overall health outcomes has improved steadily from 72nd, or bottom half, in 2010, to 62nd, or top half, in 2014.

Suffolk’s focus on the health of its citizens is, unquestionably, making a difference.

Now, some evidence that continued diligence is needed:

• While the percentage of Virginia adults with diabetes crept upward from 2006 to 2010, diabetes surged in Suffolk, from 8.9 percent of adults to 11.9 percent. This is significant, among other reasons, because the average medical expenses for a person with diagnosed diabetes are 2.3 times higher than for someone without diabetes. In 2012, Suffolk had 170.7 diabetes hospital discharges per 100,000 people, compared with 133.2 statewide.
• Deaths from diabetes, after dipping in the prior decade, have risen sharply in Suffolk since 2009, from 22.1 deaths per 100,000 people to 41.9. The statewide diabetes death rate during the same period has been stable.
• A whopping 70 percent of adults in the Western Tidewater Health District, which includes Suffolk, were either overweight or obese in 2012, the latest year of available data. The statewide average was 64 percent. Of interest, the average annual medical costs for an obese person are $1,429 more than those of a normal-weight person.

Progress on key fronts notwithstanding, programs such as the Suffolk Partnership’s Healthy People, Healthy Suffolk initiative are more needed and relevant than ever.

Says Welch: “Clearly there are many health challenges that we must face as a community. Most require individuals to make lifestyle choices to protect and improve their own health. Other improvements will require societal action and perhaps policy change. The health of a community is contingent on the health of its individual citizens and impacts economic stability, educational progress and family unity.”

Steve Stewart is publisher of the Suffolk News-Herald. His email address is steve.stewart@suffolknewsherald.com.