Atchison County Health Department Administrator Julie Livengood thanked everyone for their participation in the meetings, which will hopefully produce positive improvements in the health of Atchison County residents.
Jaci McReynolds, MHA, Project Manager with HealthierMO, talked about the many different things that can affect your health and whether its something that we as a society can control, influence change, or have no control over.
Todd McDaniel, a statistician and statistics professor with Missouri State University in Springfield, Missouri, and with Research by Design, LLC, discussed the results of a recent survey taken by Atchison County residents.
In September 2022, the Atchison County Health Department, department board members, and members of the community began a project to review the community health needs in our county and identify areas where it could collectively make a positive difference.
Together, they listed the values our community holds dear, things like service/support, faith, community price, compassion, and making do with what we have. They talked about the forces that affect health in our community, like technology, politics, the economy and the environment, social culture, science, ethics, and the legal system. They developed a mission statement that included priority values for our community:
Atchison County will be a place where faith, service, and community collectively prioritize kids, stabilize families, serve all residents with compassion and acceptance, and provide support and affordable access to resources that assure the highest level of physical, mental, and spiritual health.
After the September meetings, the Atchison County Health Department conducted an internal assessment of its own strengths, gaps, and areas for improvement. The department launched a community survey to gather additional input and engaged a statistician to collect and analyze health data for Atchison County from local, regional, state, and national sources.
Eight months after its first meeting, there was a wealth of data and perspectives available, which were shared at a meeting at the Velma Houts Fair Building in Rock Port, Missouri, Tuesday, April 11, 2023. Some of the information gathered in the survey included:
• One in four Atchison County residents is over age 65, and one in five residents is under 18.
• Rates of smoking and adult obesity are higher in Atchison County than in other Missouri counties.
• Eight in 10 Atchison County residents report more physically or mentally unhealthy days than other Missourians.
There were negative and positive aspects of the health of residents in the county. Attendees discussed their views about what the most worrying things are about residents’ health. Their top three choices were chronic illness, mental health, and food insecurity. At the next meeting, they will discuss ways, if any, that changes can be made to allow improvements for people facing these three issues.
