Board is briefed on assessment
By Phyllis Moore
Published in News on August 14, 2016 10:33 AM
The Wayne County Board of Health got a sneak peak Wednesday at the 2015 community health assessment before its release.
According to the preliminary surveys and data, crime is down and 25 percent of Wayne County residents have no health insurance at all, with "access to care" being high on the list of needs for citizens.
"The community health assessment is a tool used to examine key problems and assess issues of the community, but the ultimate goal is to develop strategies to address the community's needs and to identify the needs of the community," Shamika Howell, health education supervisor, explained during a presentation at the board meeting.
Information was gathered through six focus groups held around the county and through online and paper surveys. Secondary data came from state and local agencies, with comparisons made with counties of similar economic and demographic makeup.
Wayne County is still predominantly caucasian, although the white population has actually dropped since 2010, Ms. Howell said. Minority groups like African American and hispanic have, meanwhile, increased over the same period.
The county has 76 percent who are high school graduates, only slightly behind the state's rate of 79 percent. The percentage of residents having at least some college education is 57.8 percent, compared with the state statistic of 63.1 percent.
"The overall health of our county is good, 36.2 percent, following a 'very good' health status of 32.4 percent," she said. "So the residents are saying that they're in good health condition."
At the same time, the highest percentage, 25.5, indicated they have "no health plan of any kind," she told the board.
The next closest category, those insured by Blue Cross Blue Shield, is at 24.5 percent. Only 13 percent of employers in the area provide private insurance.
The remaining make-up included 7.9 percent being covered under a state employees health plan and 7.8 percent on Medicare.
When comparing specific health issues like diabetes, cancer, heart disease and respiratory ailments, Wayne County is slightly above other counties in the state, with diabetes being particularly higher. Sexually transmitted diseases, while still higher than the state, have dropped "dramatically" from previous years, Ms. Howell said.
When asked to weigh in with their own suggestions, she said residents were very vocal about "access to hands-on care" -- the need for satellite health care centers and clinics and running the WATCH van more days topping the list.
Crime in the community will also likely become the subject of debate when the health assessment is finalized and released.
According to the figures obtained since the last community health assessment was done in 2012, the overall total number of incidents topped 5,379 in 2012 and in 2014, the last year results were made available, it had dipped to 4,706.
Health Director Davin Madden said the statistics were based on the 2014 crime index, indicating that the crime rates are lower, but acknowledged they might not reflect the most recent rash of shootings and murders that have been reported in the city.
To date this year, Goldsboro has had eight murders, two in recent weeks. Five of those still remain unsolved.
Ms. Howell said her committee had to correct some errors in the data, but expects to finish the health assessment and release the completed report soon.
Board member Kim Larson, who was on the committee, said overall the process had gone well.
"I think we have good data, strong data with the survey, the focus groups and the secondary data," she said. "It takes everybody coming together to implement the plan.
"This is just the first step of four years of work toward making changes."
Board chairman Bob Cagle said the findings are just one piece of the puzzle, but will be useful information moving forward.
"The numbers are all over the board as far as counties and things," he said. "Why? I'm not sure that's a question we can answer. We just know what our numbers are, what we've been able to do."
The big thing the report does is provide an idea of what areas to focus on, Madden said.
"Getting the voice of the community, sometimes you don't know what the community is feeling until you get that community voice," he said.
The information will be beneficial in several areas, he added -- from obtaining grants to earmarking services.
"Some of the reasons what's in here is useful, for the county commissioners, the information that's in here is information that they need to have as they make decisions to where they put the resources in this county," Cagle said. "There's never enough resources to put them wherever and if you've got the documentation and support for things, it makes for a better sell, a smarter sell."
One area that was not included in the health assessment was the infant mortality rate, which Madden called a "litmus test" for the community.
"It gives us a starting point," he said. "It went down. We saw a dramatic drop over the last couple of years."
He said some good work has been done in the county in such areas as parenting skills, early parenting care, increasing consciousness and working on good outcomes.
Board member Kim Larson had one caveat to that.
"Our total infant mortality has gone down but when you separate it out, the board should know that the African American infant mortality is higher," she said. "When you separate the minority population rate, it's higher than total infant mortality. That's not good."