The Partnership for a Healthier Ross County continues to work together to find out what is happening with our health and needs.
Partnership member Kim Jones of Adena Health System had this to say "We look at everything from demographic data to education, what kind of diseases are prevalent like the top causes of death for things as well as different states of health how many people have diabetes, are overweight, or have high blood pressure. What is the cancer rate things like that are put together to see what the priorities should be."
Jones adds what local health providers are doing with the information they gather, "They work on what they call population health networks. Working to create opportunities and identify disparities in terms of populations that might have specific issues, as well as figure out what kinds of social determinates need to be addressed like not having a ride to get to appointments or help with medication, things like that need to be equitable across the continuum of care and that everybody has every tool they need to be able to get better."
Local health providers are using data to approach all of us on how to live healthier lives. The Director of Health Promotion at the Ross Health District Kelly Dennis said,
"We found out that we do have higher rates of respiratory and lung disease in our county, and that became the primary focus. We also learned more about general diseases that's occurring and what kind of specific populations have those diseases, so we can target to those groups to help deal with those problems."
Asti Powell, Community Health Specialist at the health district, says there is also some good news,
"In the most recent county health ranking we did really great in clinical care. We ranked 8th in the state then we also made some improvements with health factor so previously we were ranked 65 now we are 57th, and so as each of those sections of health are improved our overall health outcomes will improve it will just take some time to get to that point"