Infectious disease deaths drop, but rural areas lag - Entrepreneur Generations

Though fewer Americans are dying from infectious diseases compared to three decades ago, mortality rates among rural Americans haven't improved as much because of factors such as the steady decline in access to health care services in many rural areas, according to a study recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Ali Mokdad, a co-author of the study and a professor of global health and epidemiology at the University of Washington, said "As a country we are doing much better, but certain counties are still lagging behind and are in fact getting worse," Steven Ross Johnson reports for Modern Healthcare.

Deaths from lower respiratory infection had the largest rural-urban disparity, but "a 2017 Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention report found death rates for heart disease, cancer, unintentional injury, chronic lower respiratory disease and stroke were all higher in rural areas compared to urban environments. Like Tuesday's study, the CDC report suggested a combination of limited healthcare access and a higher frequency of health-risk behaviors were major contributors to those outcomes," Johnson reports.

Overall infectious disease mortality dropped 18 percent between 1980 and 2014, from 42.95 deaths to 34.10 deaths per 100,000, the study's authors found after examining death records from the National Center for Health Statistics, population counts from the U.S. Census Bureau, NCHS and the Human Mortality Database. Mortality rates for almost all categories of infectious disease declined, except for diarrheal diseases, which increased.

Mokdad said that factors like income, education, obesity, access to health care, and frequency of risky behaviors like smoking and substance use usually predict health outcomes in a community. "He said people living in medically underserved areas often go through a vicious cycle of engaging in unhealthy behaviors when they can't access healthcare services consistently or take advantage of preventive services. Such individuals often delay seeking treatment until their condition has become more advanced, reducing their chances of recovery," Johnson reports.

from The Rural Blog https://ift.tt/2EikRa7 Infectious disease deaths drop, but rural areas lag - Entrepreneur Generations

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