Coalition: Better health is possible in Mountain Empire

LEBANON, Va. – With a collaborative grassroots effort, Southwest Virginia can get healthier, community leaders said during a health summit here Thursday.

Sponsored by the Healthy Appalachia Institute at the University of Virginia’s College at Wise and the Southwest Virginia Health Authority, the summit was held to discuss a plan unveiled last year for better health in the region.

“We’re probably one of the sickest regions in the state and the nation,” said state Delegate Bud Phillips, D-Castlewood, who was the first speaker. “I truly believe that health care in Southwest Virginia is at a crisis point.”

Phillips summed up the bottom line he gleaned from statistics: the region has the highest rates of mortality, drug abuse, cancer and diabetes in the state.

“When you have the deaths we have, the diseases and illnesses we have, it is a drag on the economy,” he said. “It is a destroyer of the individual and the family and the community. ... We cannot tolerate that level of crisis in our communities in Southwest Virginia. We have to come together as community leaders and find ways to resolve these problems.”

The Healthy Appalachia Institute is a university-based organization focused on improving health outcomes in Central Appalachia. The Southwest Virginia Health Authority is a board created by the state to address health issues in two Southwest Virginia planning districts.

The two worked together on the Blueprint for Health Improvement and Health-Enabled Prosperity, which lists three pages of goals – things like better dental care for children, increased numbers of recreational facilities and improved use of technology in medical records and treatment.

Phillips gave the crowd that filled the Russell County Conference Center Thursday a bold challenge: “I’m convinced that we in this room can make a radical change and shift in health care in one generation,” he said.

Phillips’ call to arms follows the recent release of statistics by the University of Wisconsin, which compiled health data on every county in America. The study took an across-the-board look at factors influencing health, from behavioral choices to the availability of clinical care.

Sue Cantrell, director of the Lenowisco Health District, which includes Lee, Scott and Wise counties and the city of Norton, presented data that showed far Southwest Virginia among the worst regions in the state in almost every area of health.

The region has high rates of obesity, physical inactivity, tobacco use, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, asthma and even tooth loss, she said.

Overall, Cantrell said, this health “checkup” for the region shows that a vast array of factors influences health in the community, far beyond the health care system itself.

“If the problem is in the community, then the solution is in the community,” she said.

Among the region’s most pressing health concerns named by participants in Thursday’s summit were obesity, substance abuse, domestic violence, lack of education and a general sense of apathy about health among much of the population.

State Sen. Phil Puckett, D-Lebanon, said the movement that’s beginning for change in the region’s health is “grassroots from the bottom up” – and the community can achieve things that can’t be done from Richmond or Washington, D.C.

“We have a great blueprint out here,” he said. “I think it’s a trend-setter for people all across this country, particularly in rural areas, who want to improve their health care.”

John Dreyzehner, director of the Cumberland Plateau Health District, which includes Buchanan, Russell, Dickenson and Tazewell counties, said the plan is “a living document.”

“We all have to recognize that this is not the solution,” he said. “This is the beginning of the solution.”

David Cattell-Gordon, co-director of the Healthy Appalachia Institute, said he believes that in the future people will look back and see this as the point when health and prosperity began to improve in the region – and the point when a model was created that could be applied in other rural communities.

He said the change starts with personal responsibility when people make the decision to eat healthier and exercise.

“Change does not come easy in the mountains; it never has,” he said. “This sense of our health that we see in this data, we have known for a long time.”

But, he added, “While we’ve had a very difficult diagnosis in this ranking … we have to celebrate some incredible movement toward a healthier Appalachia.”

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