Forum attendees surprised by some findings
Posted on Sunday, March 30, 2008
SILOAM SPRINGS - A survey of 693 people in the Siloam Springs Memorial Hospital's primary service area turned up both good and bad things.
"In short there is some good and bad in our community," said Jerry Labadie, the Siloam Springs Regional Health Cooperative Network coordinator. "On one hand, we have a high degree of trust for our local medical community but on the bad front we have a lot of chronic conditions."
An increase in chronic conditions and further decline can greatly decrease the quality of living in a community, Labadie said.
"There are far too many people without access to care and we have to keep places like St. Francis Clinic, which is desperately in need of money, alive," Labadie said. "If hospitals get clogged with nonemergencies because people can't get help elsewhere, then healthcare won't be able to quickly help people having real emergencies."
Recently, more than 60 people - including business leaders, city government workers, and medical practitioners - convened at Community Christian Fellowship Church for the first Siloam Springs Area Health Town Forum sponsored by Siloam Springs Regional Health Cooperative.
The study showed one-third of residents in the service area have skipped seeking health care in the year preceding the survey, explained Dr. Molly Longstreth, director of the University of Arkansas Research Center. The cost of care seems to be the main reason people do not seek care. Many respondents also voiced concerns about job demands taking away from their being able to seek care, as well as a lack of transportation being a hindrance.
"One-fifth of SSMH primary service area residents currently smoke, similar to the national average but lower than state averages for both Arkansas and Oklahoma," Longstreth said.
Certain portions of the presentations surprised attendees. The study concluded that the diabetes rate among the service area residents is approximately three times the national average, while the cancer rate approximates the national average. Similarly, the incidence of stroke is approximately twice the national average.
A possible reason for the elevated percentage of diabetes and stroke incidents in the area, according to Longstreth, is that the survey purposefully over-sampled the Hispanic and native American population within the study. Both groups have been proven to have higher diabetes rates as well as strokes.
Nearly 21 percent of the selected respondents were Hispanic, a number that was purposefully over-represented, Longstreth said. An estimated 12 percent of the area's population is Hispanic. All data was weighted and compared to U. S. Census Bureau data.
According to Longstreth, the study contained an equal number of male and female respondents and was conducted with an age range of 18 to 94. Nearly three-quarters of the respondents are white; the remaining respondents were African-American, Hispanic and native American. A little more than half of the respondents are Arkansas residents and the other half live in Oklahoma, Longstreth said.
The Siloam Springs Memorial Hospital primary service area includes large parts of Benton, Delaware and Adair counties and a smaller portion of Washington County.
During Wednesday's forum, representatives from area healthcare providers greeted guests at informational booths and handed out pamphlets on nutrition, health awareness and local services.
"The idea behind this network is that we can accomplish more together than we can by ourselves," said Dr. George Benjamin, one of the founders of the local St. Francis Clinic. "There are a lot of barriers and walls out there. If one of us shouts out loud nothing happens. If two or three of us shout out, a rock or two will fall. If we all shout together the walls crumble and the barriers fall."
The survey, which began Nov. 8, was conducted by the Survey Research Center at the University of Arkansas on behalf of the nonprofit Siloam Springs Regional Health Cooperative Inc. The goal was to gather health statistics in an effort to provide accurate local health data. Some of the questionnaires were completed by patients at St. Francis Clinic and Genesis House in Siloam Springs.
A computer system randomly generated phone numbers and selected participants before calls were made, Longstreth explained.
The ZIP-code based survey provides a specialized view of the health in the area, Labadie said: "Generally these studies give a broader view because they're county based."
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