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You are here: Home / Community / HCHD Releases ‘2019 Picture of Our Health’ Profile

HCHD Releases ‘2019 Picture of Our Health’ Profile

March 4, 2019 By Dick Cook and Contributed Article 0 Comments

The Chattanooga-Hamilton County Health Department announces the release of its 2019 Picture of Our Health community health profile for Hamilton County.  The report is a broad picture of the health of Hamilton County residents compiled from local, state, and federal data sources. It was last updated in 2015.

“This report helps guide our community’s efforts in targeting prevention initiatives, improving health care, and influencing public policy,” says Health Department Administrator Becky Barnes, “It shows us what’s working well and where we as a community need to focus our efforts.”

Over 100 health status indicators are grouped into eleven major topic areas. Some of the bright spots include:

  • Opioid prescriptions dropped 15% over the last 3 years.
  • From 2010 to 2016, teen birth rates in Hamilton County decreased by 34%.

Some areas of concern are:

  • 32,303 Hamilton County residents remain uninsured in 2017.
  • In 2017, there were 85 fatal drug overdoses. Of these 85 deaths, 60 (71%) involved opioids.

The report also focuses on health disparities. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), health disparities are preventable differences in the burden of disease, injury, violence, or in opportunities to achieve optimal health experienced by socially disadvantaged racial, ethnic, and other population groups, and communities. One notable example from our local data is that Black mothers are 2.4 times more likely to give birth to a low birth weight baby than White mothers.

The report reinforces the critical need for partnerships between government, private industry, non-profit, and faith-based organizations. Each of these health indicators are like a complex puzzle, especially when examining them through the health disparities lens. Oftentimes, an organization is only equipped to work on its piece of the puzzle. However, when the pieces come together, we all move closer to the solution.  Only by working together can we make Hamilton County a safer and healthier place in which to live, to work, to learn, to worship, and to play.

To view the entire report, visit the Health Department’s website here.

Filed Under: Community, FEATURED POSTS, News

About Dick Cook

Dick Cook has lived in East Ridge since the Kennedy Administration when his parents bought a house on Marietta Street. Dick graduated from ERHS in 1976 before going on to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga where he studied Political Science. Dick worked for the Chattanooga Free-Press and the Chattanooga Times Free Press for 22 years. Free-Press Sports Editor Roy Exum plucked him out of production in 1989 and gave him a job as a sports reporter. Dick covered everything from prep sports to the whitewater events on the Ocoee River for the 1996 Olympics. When Chattanooga's two paper's merged, he became the Crime Reporter covering both the Chattanooga Police and Fire Departments. He was among reporters who were honored by the Associated Press for the TFP's coverage of the 2002 fog-shrouded crash on I-75 in Catoosa County, Dick and his wife, Cathy, live on Marlboro Avenue where they are seen frequently chasing around their three grandsons.

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