by Sean McManus
Staff Writer
It was quite a lineup at the Ritz Theatre & LaVilla Museum earlier this month for the kickoff of Healthy Jacksonville 2010, the local arm of a nationwide campaign called Healthy People, which is designed to make everyone live longer.
Speakers included Constantinos Miskis, an attorney who is U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson’s regional representative for the Southeast, Dr. John Agwunobi, the secretary of the Florida Department of Health, who in addition to a medical degree has an master’s degree in business from Georgetown and is pursuing a second master’s degree in public health from Johns Hopkins, and Dr. Antoinette Lloyd, the Yale-educated doctor who is the program director for the Duval County Health Department where she coordinates Healthy People 2010, known locally as Healthy Jacksonville.
They, along with Mayor John Delaney, U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown and a host of other dignitaries and health advocates were all there to give their support for an initiative which seeks to ameliorate glaring inadequacies in the overall state of health in Jacksonville.
According to the Duval County Health Department’s Healthy People 2010 Report Card, Duval County has higher [that means worse] rates than the U.S. and Florida in all but six of the 29 Healthy People 2010 objectives, which range from reducing cancer death rates to reducing teen pregnancies, to reducing obesity and tobacco use. Consequently, life expectancy for Duval residents is lower than the national rates.
“The situation here is really pretty grim,” said Dr. Matt Neibaur, who is a cardiologist and the resident physician at North Florida Wellness, the group hired to conduct health screenings of local residents for Healthy Jacksonville.
By charting about 25 variables from blood pressure to weight and cholesterol, Neibaur has developed something called a “risk score,” which was designed to approximate the chances of dying of a heart attack or a stroke in the next 10 years. According to Neibaur, it is the best way to filter the impact of various tests such as cholesterol, smoking and blood pressure on possible mortality.
“The point of all this,” said Neibaur, “is that health care costs are out of control and the only way the United States can seriously deflect the rising costs is for us to begin living healthier.”
Healthy Jacksonville will assemble 11 coalitions, with subjects such as injury prevention, cancer and heart rate. Local physicians and health care experts will chair each committee. The goal, according to Dr. Lloyd, the program’s director, is to make incremental progress in specific areas in an overall attempt to make Jacksonville one of the healthiest cities in the nation. Policy changes in school cafeterias and general awareness initiatives, she said, will be some of the first steps.
The push for a healthier Jacksonville started last year when the drug company Pfizer, one of the sponsors of Healthy Jacksonville, called North Florida Wellness Services to inquire about conducting health screenings for area residents. The first population they chose were members of the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department. Over the last six months, North Florida Wellness has done screenings for employees at Blue Cross & Blue Shield and in the Eagle Harbor residential development.
“We’ve been very pleased by the response we’ve been getting,” said Melody Thompson, a nurse and director of wellness services for North Florida Wellness. “Firemen in Jacksonville are starting to eat salads for lunch and exercise more.”
North Florida Wellness, located in Jacksonville Beach, was founded in 1998 by Tami Deitchman, a nurse who saw a need for a company that could place other nurses in specialty roles at area hospitals, like in critical care units and during post-anesthesia. It also has a home care unit in addition to the wellness center — the community outreach program that provides flu shots and other basic services and coordinates the Safe Sitter Program, which trains teenagers about what to do if a baby is choking.
And the wellness center can also calculate a patient’s risk score and then, using propriety software created by Neibaur, provide a three-page report analyzing their health and providing individualized suggestions for how to improve the score. Once screened, the scores and suggestions for helpful diet tips can be found on their website.
“A lot of people leave the doctor not really knowing where they stand,” said Neibaur. “This gives people an idea of their overall health.” The $25 it costs for a health screening and risk score, he notes, “can change your life.”
“And it’s also a helpful tool for companies who want to have healthier employees,” said Thompson. “Not only does it save money in the long-term, it keeps people out of the hospital and in the office.”
According to a report Neibaur compiled for Healthy Jacksonville, the overall cost of health plan premiums increased 10.3 percent for all plan types in 2001, and pharmaceutical costs rose at 14.6 percent. It is estimated that while health care costs hit $1 trillion last year, they are expected to double by 2007.
In addition, the United States spends almost 14 percent of its GNP on health care and Americans have shorter life spans than people in Germany, Canada, Japan and the United Kingdom, which all spend much less.
In Jacksonville, where people aren’t as healthy as in other parts of the country, it’s even worse. According to Neibaur, 68 percent of people here are either overweight or obese, compared to a national rate of 60 percent. The total cost of obesity is $99.2 billion, and obese individuals have a 50-100 percent increased risk of death from all causes, according to Neibaur’s report.
“If people could just start preventing disease instead of waiting until it’s too late,” said Neibaur. “We’d all be better off.”