Where’s the Outrage?

From NYT:

West Virginia and Kentucky, states known for high levels of obesity, diabetes and smoking, have the highest proportion of people with heart disease in the nation, health officials said Thursday.

The findings, from the first study to look at the prevalence of heart disease state by state, showed that states in the Southeast and Southwest led in heart disease. Colorado and the District of Columbia had the lowest percentages.

The results line up with state-specific reports on heart disease death rates, obesity and other risk factors, said Wayne D. Rosamond, a professor of epidemiology at the University of North Carolina who leads a statistics committee for the American Heart Association.

Dr. Rosamond called the report, by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, very important.

“It confirms what we know about regional differences in the burden of disease,” he said.

For the nation as a whole, 4 percent of those surveyed had had heart attacks. A slightly higher percentage reported angina or coronary disease; 6.5 percent reported any of those conditions.

In West Virginia, more than 10 percent had at least one condition. The prevalence in Kentucky was nearly 9 percent, and Mississippi was third, with 8 percent.

Researchers at the disease centers drew their data from a telephone survey in 2005 of 356,112 adults in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands.

Participants were asked whether a doctor or health care professional had told them that they had experienced a heart attack, angina or coronary disease. The researchers statistically adjusted the results for demographic differences.

The prevalence in Colorado and the District of Columbia was slightly less than 5 percent, tying them for the lowest rate. Hawaii was a close third.

These were other findings in the study:

Among those who did not finish high school, one in 10 had at least one condition. Among college graduates, one in 20 did.

More than 8 percent of the men had one condition; 5 percent of women did.

Nearly one in five people 65 and older had at least one condition. The percentages were much smaller among younger groups.

The results were the same for blacks and whites, with slightly more than 6 percent having one condition. Fewer than 5 percent of Asian-Americans had any of the problems, making them the healthiest ethnic group. American Indians and Alaskan natives had the highest prevalence, 11 percent.

The regional differences are believed to stem from rates of obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, smoking and other known risk factors for heart disease, said the lead author of the study, Jonathan Neyer, an epidemiologist at the disease centers.

The explanation would come from differences in cultural norms, poverty rates and other social factors, and not environmental causes, Dr. Neyer said. “There’s not something in the water,” he said.

Tags: Healthcare //