KENT: Just crossing county lines can have a big impact on your health and overall quality of life.
Nearly 94 percent of Medina County women get prenatal care during the first three months of pregnancy, but a quarter of expectant mothers in Wayne County don’t receive this recommended medical attention.
About 362 per 100,000 Summit County residents have the sexually transmitted disease chlamydia, compared to a substantially higher rate of 573 per 100,000 Cuyahoga County residents.
And nearly 38 per 1,000 females ages 15 to 19 in Stark and Summit counties are teen moms, while the rate of teen births is only 18 per 1,000 in Medina County and 20 per 1,000 in Portage County.
These are among the findings released Tuesday during a regional conference at Kent State University sponsored by the Center for Community Solutions.
The nonprofit group identifies community issues and then analyzes them to propose recommendations for improvement.
The new report is part of the center’s initiative known as NEORIO, or Northeast Ohio Regional Indicators and Objectives.
The goal is to use the data and other indicators under development to identify problems and then encourage health and social service agencies throughout the region to work together on solutions, said Emily Campbell, a public policy fellow at the Center for Community Solutions, which is based in Cleveland.
“The goal is to measure and track indicators of quality of life and to set some goals around these indicators,” she said. “The objective is to improve awareness and alignment.”
The new report examines 10 health indicators for Northeast Ohio residents and compared results to state and national averages.
The categories include rates for prenatal care, low birth weight, teen births, chlamydia, HIV, tuberculosis, disabilities, behavioral health needs, health insurance coverage and years of potential life lost.
The counties in the study region are Ashland, Ashtabula, Carroll, Columbiana, Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lake, Lorain, Mahoning, Medina, Portage, Richland, Stark, Summit, Trumbull and Wayne.
Some of the data can be used to help identify new support programs that need to be developed, said Mark Salling, the center’s director of research.
For instance, he said, the disability rates in each county can help determine the need for senior services and other support programs in particular communities.
“It will be more service-oriented measures we will be looking at,” he said.
Overall, the Northeast Ohio communities included in the study fared slightly better than the national average in many of the categories, Campbell said.
For example, the region’s uninsured rate (11.7 percent) was lower than the national average (15.1 percent). The study area’s HIV rate of 165.6 per 100,000 residents also was slightly lower than the national average HIV rate of 170.3 per 100,000.
However, the findings still leave lots of room for improvement throughout Northeast Ohio, Salling said.
“They’re still high,” he said. “There are still things that have to get lower.”
The entire report can be viewed on the Center for Community Solution’s website, http://www.communitysolutions.com.
The group also has launched a Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/neorio.ohio to solicit public input and share information.
Cheryl Powell can be reached at 330-996-3902 or chpowell@thebeaconjournal.com.
