Good Health in Region X: Part 1
Tuesday, November 19, 2019
Written by: Alexcia Devasquez, Data & Information Specialist, NWRPCA
With Diabetes Awareness Month we see an emphasis on healthy eating and diet education regarding diabetes type 1 and 2. In Data Points we will look at the data that has been collected regarding our consumption, obesity statistics, and how well we are doing as a region to have these conversations with our patients.
The Nation’s Administration and Agencies have noticed the importance of tracking the number of people who are diagnosed and treated for diabetes and hypertension; and because they recognize obesity as one of the medical contributing factors to an increased risk of both, they have increased tracking on this as well. HRSA, through the UDS report, tracks 20 data points regarding diabetes and prevalence by ethnicity, 40 data points regarding hypertension and ethnicity, and 10 data points regarding obesity, 6 of which are broken down by age. When HRSA is tracking the prevalence of obesity, they are also tracking the documented conversations we are having with our patients about BMI and nutrition. In the Clinical Measures from the UDS data, they compare percentage of children and adolescents with documented counseling and BMI percentile and number of children and adolescents with documented counseling and BMI percentile while with adults they examine the percentage of Adults with Follow up Plan.
In investigating this data, I realized these percentages don’t speak to how many adults and children are being screened. They are asking health centers to report how many patients who have been counseled have a plan. When we look at the number of patients reported by health centers in Region X in the age range 3-17, and how many of them are being talked to about BMI and nutrition, we see that health centers report that they talk to 69% of our children about nutrition and BMI and follow up with about 28% who are not in the BMI normal range. When we look at adult patients, we see that health centers report that they talk to 79% of their adult patients and have a follow up plan with 39%.
The CDC has multiple tools on their site that show our national statistics regarding diabetes, obesity of both adults and children, and studies regarding our nutrition and consumption of food. The CDC states that most Americans don’t get their recommended daily servings of fruits and veggies but their study shows that the majority of Americans don’t get more than two serving of fruits and veggies a day let alone the suggested 5 servings. Their study shows that 37.9% of Americans get more than one serving of fruit a day and 22.5% get more than 1 serving of veggies a day. This means 62.1% of Americans have one or fewer servings of fruit a day and 78.5% of Americans are getting 1 or fewer servings of veggies a day. In our Region, we fall a little lower than the national average with 82% of people getting one or fewer vegetable serving per day.
Written by: Alexcia Devasquez, Data & Information Specialist, NWRPCA
With Diabetes Awareness Month we see an emphasis on healthy eating and diet education regarding diabetes type 1 and 2. In Data Points we will look at the data that has been collected regarding our consumption, obesity statistics, and how well we are doing as a region to have these conversations with our patients.
The Nation’s Administration and Agencies have noticed the importance of tracking the number of people who are diagnosed and treated for diabetes and hypertension; and because they recognize obesity as one of the medical contributing factors to an increased risk of both, they have increased tracking on this as well. HRSA, through the UDS report, tracks 20 data points regarding diabetes and prevalence by ethnicity, 40 data points regarding hypertension and ethnicity, and 10 data points regarding obesity, 6 of which are broken down by age. When HRSA is tracking the prevalence of obesity, they are also tracking the documented conversations we are having with our patients about BMI and nutrition. In the Clinical Measures from the UDS data, they compare percentage of children and adolescents with documented counseling and BMI percentile and number of children and adolescents with documented counseling and BMI percentile while with adults they examine the percentage of Adults with Follow up Plan.
In investigating this data, I realized these percentages don’t speak to how many adults and children are being screened. They are asking health centers to report how many patients who have been counseled have a plan. When we look at the number of patients reported by health centers in Region X in the age range 3-17, and how many of them are being talked to about BMI and nutrition, we see that health centers report that they talk to 69% of our children about nutrition and BMI and follow up with about 28% who are not in the BMI normal range. When we look at adult patients, we see that health centers report that they talk to 79% of their adult patients and have a follow up plan with 39%.
The CDC has multiple tools on their site that show our national statistics regarding diabetes, obesity of both adults and children, and studies regarding our nutrition and consumption of food. The CDC states that most Americans don’t get their recommended daily servings of fruits and veggies but their study shows that the majority of Americans don’t get more than two serving of fruits and veggies a day let alone the suggested 5 servings. Their study shows that 37.9% of Americans get more than one serving of fruit a day and 22.5% get more than 1 serving of veggies a day. This means 62.1% of Americans have one or fewer servings of fruit a day and 78.5% of Americans are getting 1 or fewer servings of veggies a day. In our Region, we fall a little lower than the national average with 82% of people getting one or fewer vegetable serving per day.
These statistics suggest that helping health center patients make a plan about healthy eating should be a nearly universal goal – not just with patients who are already obese, but with patients who are not yet obese, but may not have access to and/or be eating a health-supporting diet.