New study points to deep differences in quality of health in Memphis

By Toby Sells, The Commercial Appeal, Memphis, Tenn.

Jan. 26--The health of individual Memphians is influenced by race, ethnicity and language, according to a new study from the Healthy Memphis Common Table.

The health care advocacy organization's study is based on data collected in 2009 from patients at Methodist North Hospital and national data from the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care.

The study found many health disparities among black and white patients.

Common Table leaders presented their findings to the public today at the National Civil Rights Museum.

According to the study, black patients hospitalized for heart failure were on average 15 years younger than white patients.

Black heart-failure patients were released from the hospital a day and half earlier than white patients.

Black patients hospitalized for either heart attack or heart failure were more likely to die, it said. Also, black patients were more likely than whites "to experience death at a younger age."

"Most of those disparities were not due to the care they received inside the hospital but because of things that happened outside the hospital walls," said Paula Jacobs, co-chairman of the Common Table's health equity effort.

These disparities and others were driven by poverty, lack of health care access, limited public transportation, health insurance status and more.

For example, if someone can't get to the doctor or doesn't have insurance, they're less likely to go, the study said.

The study also draws comparisons between Nashville, which census figures showed was 28 percent black or African American in 2009, and Memphis, which was more than 60 percent black at the same time.

Nashville-seated Davidson County had more college-educated residents, lower unemployment, fewer children in poverty and fewer single-parent households than Shelby County. Davidson County also had lower rates of cancer deaths, breast cancer and cervical cancer, according to the study.

The Common Table was one of 16 recipients of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grants to study health equity, a part of the foundation's Aligning Forces for Quality program. Common Table CEO Renee Frazier said that the issue is complex and sensitive but necessary and plans to host a series of community conversations on the topic this year.

Study co-chairman Dr. Henry Sullivant noted that Memphis is the epicenter of diabetes and obesity in the country. Those brands are not attractive to companies looking to possibly locate their business to Memphis.

"What expense will I bear, what will my insurance cost me by bringing my company Memphis," he asked. "There is an imperative at that level to address this issue."

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