Rotary Club speaker Bill Stiles, a Chattanooga-based health care consultant and president of Stiles Healthcare Strategy, presented highlights and priorities from the most recent 109-page Healthy Hall Community Assessment, funded jointly by Northeast Georgia Medical Center and United Way of Hall County.
"One of those priorities is increasing access to health care, increasing access to health insurance and increasing access to various types of health care such as dental care, mental health care and those types of services," Stiles said. "That's an area where a substantial percentage of the population is having difficulty accessing those services because they lack insurance."
Stiles said the uninsured rate was up from its 11 percent level in 2003 with the largest increase among young, low-income, less educated adults.
Healthy Hall reports that 61 percent of those without insurance work for employers who did not offer it and 58 percent of the working uninsured believe $100 or less is a reasonable price to pay for family health insurance.
Forty-three percent of the uninsured delayed getting medical care because they could not afford it, with 31 percent delaying dental care for the same reason.
"It should also be pointed out," Stiles added, "that the Health Department and organizations like the Good News Clinic as well as Northeast Georgia Health Systems are working awfully hard to close that gap."
The Healthy Hall Assessment, the third in 10 years, was completed in 2007 and focused on health, safety and security, community connections and confidence in the future among Hall's estimated 173,256 population, according to 2006 U.S. Census figures.
According to 2007 assessment figures, 68 percent of Hall County's workers were confident their jobs were secure at least for the year ahead.
"I really have no insight into what the current statistic might be," Stiles said. "We spent a lot of time measuring that last year and we've not done that measurement this year, but obviously these are times that make us nervous about our economic future."
Stiles said he believed Hall has a bright future because of its growth and its diversified industry and employment.
According to Healthy Hall, assessment information was gathered from 500 randomly selected residential surveys, from focus groups representing a cross section of the population and from significant state, regional and nation data.
Healthy Hall likened the assessment to a doctor's physical, evaluating attitudes and vital signs and comparing findings to expected norms and historical data.
Priorities set by the assessment included access to affordable health insurance, disease prevention and dental services to the uninsured, expanding access to mental health and substance abuse services and reducing disparities between the poor and others that create barriers to health, education and quality of life.
Stiles told the Rotarians the entire assessment is available on the Healthy Hall Web site, and invited organization-planning researchers to use the assessment's information.
Rotary Club speaker Bill Stiles presented highlights from the Healthy Hall Community Assessment
Bill Stiles speaks at Gainesville Rotary Club
http://accesswdun.com/article/2008/9/213760