(New Report Ranks Georgia 2nd in Childhood Obesity.)
Striking Disparities Persist; Obesity Rates Highest Among Blacks and Southerners
Adult obesity rates increased in 28 states in the past year, and declined only in the District of Columbia (D.C.), according to F as in Fat: How Obesity Threatens America's Future 2010, a report from the Trust for America's Health (TFAH) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). More than two-thirds of states (38) have adult obesity rates above 25 percent. In 1991, no state had an obesity rate above 20 percent.
The Leadership for Healthy Communities Action Strategies Toolkit and some of its policy options for increasing healthy food access and physical activity opportunities are also featured in the report. LHC grantees are already working to put some of those policies in place in the states most impacted by the obesity epidemic. For example, in Georgia, the state with the second highest rate of childhood obesity in the nation, Savannah Mayor Otis Johnson and Savannah-Chatham County Public School System Superintendent Thomas Lockamy, Jr., are working with a number of partners from community and faith-based groups, non-profits, businesses and government agencies to make community health a priority.
TheState of the Air 2010shows that the air quality in many places has improved, but that over 175 million people—roughly 58 percent—still suffer pollution levels that are too often dangerous to breathe.
In Georgia, 19.5% of the adult population (ages 18+) — over 1,393,000 individuals — are current cigarette smokers. Across all states, the prevalence of cigarette smoking among adults ranges from 9.3% to 26.5%. Georgia ranks 32nd among the states.
Presentations from a series of free Georgia Public Health Leadership Academies held by Partner Up for Public Health in June 2010 in Tifton, Savannah, Rome and Athens.
Savannah Mayor Otis Johnson is determined to improve the health of his city and all of its residents. From the earliest days of his administration, he made community health a priority, bringing together partners from community and faith-based groups, non-profits, businesses and government agencies to create a city-wide initiative, "Healthy Savannah." Many of the organizations involved, including the Savannah Chatham County Public Schools, the Metropolitan Planning Commission, the YMCA, Chatham County Health Department and the Medical College of Georgia, already had been working toward a healthier community—each on its own. By working together, they realized, they could accomplish even more.
Healthcare Georgia Foundation, in partnership with Mathews & Maxwell, Inc., a governmental affairs consulting firm, began work on this multi-purpose election guide in the fall of 2009. Georgia’s gubernatorial candidates were invited to address issues such as child health, trauma care, mental health services, public health, and health insurance coverage. The candidates’ positions, opinions, and policy perspectives were prepared and presented in the guide, precisely as they submitted them. The purpose of the guide is to inform both voters and candidates, and to encourage leadership by all elected officials in efforts to address our state’s most pressing health issues.
This collection of 50 reports reflects the overall health of counties in every state. Counties can get a snapshot of how healthy their residents are by comparing their overall health and the factors that influence their health, with other counties in their state.
This report focuses on local health departments (LHDs), although many of the findings and recommendations also apply to state health departments. Key findings include:
The sharp downturn in the US economy has led to funding cutbacks that are jeopardizing the ability of LHDs to protect and improve health.
Recently, substantial funding cutbacks from local, state, and federal government sources are the greatest source of revenue loss for LHDs.
The report finds that the investments made to improve public health emergencies over the past several years are demonstrating a major payoff as the nation confronts the H1N1 pandemic. At the same time, many core areas of public health preparedness are severely lacking and in urgent need of modernization to be ready for the next potential public health emergency, while also performing the vital tasks needed to protect our daily health. Strengthening the public health workforce, health care surge capacity, and disease tracking and surveillance are major issues of continuing concern.
In a unique study that departed from looking at historical costs of obesity, Kenneth E. Thorpe, Ph.D., and colleagues from Emory University developed an econometric model to estimate the growth of health care costs over time that are attributable to changes in obesity rates. This report provides projections of future health care costs directly attributable to obesity for each state and for the nation. Using nationally representative data on adults, the study estimates the effect of the increasing prevalence of obesity on total direct health care costs. Estimates are controlled for age, gender, race, ethnicity, marital status, education, income, health insurance status, geographic region and smoking status.
Health is a result of our behaviors, our individual genetic predisposition to disease, the environment and the community in which we live, the clinical care we receive and the policies and practices of our health care and prevention systems. This report looks at the four groups of health determinants that can be affected.
The Commonwealth Fund’s State Scorecard on Health System Performance assesses states’ performance on health care relative to achievable benchmarks for 38 indicators of access, quality, costs, and health outcomes. The 2009 State Scorecard paints a picture of health care systems under stress, with deteriorating health insurance coverage for adults and rising health care costs. On a positive note, there were gains in children’s coverage as a result of national reforms, and improvement in some measures of hospital and nursing home care following federal efforts to publicly report quality data. The scorecard highlights persistent wide variation in performance across states and continued evidence of poor care coordination. Increasing cost pressures and deterioration in access across the U.S., together with geographic disparities in performance, underscore the urgent need for comprehensive national reforms to ensure access, change the trajectory of costs, and enhance value.
Georgia too often has faltered in efforts to measurably improve the health of its residents. Data show us that we have become complacent by allowing poor health conditions to persist long after problems have been identified and solutions developed. From the data, we can see first hand the effects of declining resources and cutbacks on health programs as progress is replaced by the increased costs of bad outcomes. The data also reveal the state’s abundant, yet untapped, resources dedicated to health, and Georgia’s potential to be among the states ranked least healthy. Not only does the data tell us where our state is performing poorly, but it also provides a glimpse of the possibilities by providing insight to what other states have achieved.
Georgia’s future economic well-being is inextricably tied to our health. Helping Georgians stay healthier is one of the best ways to drive down health care costs and ensure our workforce will be competitive in the global economy. The state will never be able to contain health care costs until we start focusing on how to prevent people from getting sick in the first place. This report finds that a strategic investment in disease prevention could result in significant savings in the state’s health care costs. An investment of $10 per person per year in proven community-based programs to increase physical activity, improve nutrition, and prevent smoking and other tobacco use could save the state more than $426 million annually within five years. This is a return of $4.77 for every $1.
This report examines how much the federal government spends to try to keep the country well. A state-by-state review of fiscal year 2008 spending reveals that federal funding (through CDC) for public health varies, often significantly, with a per capita low of $12.74 to a per capita high of $52.78. The national average is $17.60 per person, a fraction of what is spent on health care costs. The report also examines state funding for public health. Each state allocates and reports its budget in a different way. States also vary widely in the level of specific detail they provide, which makes comparisons across states a challenge. This analysis looks at ways to begin comparing budgets across states, and how increased transparency and accountability could help create an understanding of how spending on public health programs can have a positive impact on people’s health.
This report examines public health issues and spending in the State of Georgia in light of state budget deficits and reorganization of the Department of Human Resources (DHR.) The report examines trends in public health funding in Georgia from FY 2003 to FY 2007, as well as budgetary trends in recent years.
This report is one in a series of program evaluations conducted by the Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget (OPB) in 2007. This evaluation reviews the governance of the county public health departments, and documents and analyzes the utilization of general grant-in-aid (GGIA) funding. The evaluation was conducted by OPB staff from the Human Development Division and the Planning, Research, and Evaluation.
This report provides data and information to understand health disparities, identify gaps in health status, and target interventions in the areas of greatest need. It is the first of its kind to focus solely on minority health outcomes for each of Georgia’s 159 counties.
This audit was conducted in response to request from Lieutenant Governor Casey Cagle to determine whether services to the uninsured could be expanded through contracts with other health care providers. The review found that “… the ability of county health departments (CHDs) to do this is limited by financial, staffing, facility and legal considerations.” While the report focuses on direct health care services, “… it is important to note that CHDs also provide population-based services (52% of CHD expenditures are population-based services)… population-based services are intended to protect the entire community. Activities such as septic tank inspections, disaster preparedness, promotion of healthy behaviors, and monitoring and tracking infectious diseases are all core public health activities that are considered to be population-based.”
The House Study Committee on Public Health was created by House Resolution 1663 during the 2006 Legislative Session of the Georgia General Assembly. HR 1663 acknowledged the need for the Legislature to reexamine the current structure of the state’s Public Health establishment, including mission, salaries, and funding formulas. The Committee recognized that Georgia’s Public Health system is in a state of crisis due to increasing responsibilities, increasing population, emergent infectious disease, the problems of immigration, the threats of terrorism and pandemic influenza, a shrinking public health workforce, and decreasing funds. It is the intent of this report and any resulting legislation, policy, executive action, rules or regulations so promulgated that the capabilities of Georgia’s Public Health system be increased and improved in order to ensure the health and safety of all Georgians from threats both routine and extraordinary.
