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FRIDAY, JANUARY 30, 2004

NATIONAL REPORT PRAISES MISSOURI

FOR PIONEERING WORK IN PUBLIC HEALTH

WASHINGTON, D.C. (January 30, 2004) – An assessment of health care in the 50 states, released here today, finds that Missouri is breaking ground in the field of public health. The report, which lauds Missouri’s use of the Internet to inform citizens about local public health issues, appears in the February 2004 issue of Governing magazine.

“Citizens crave information about the health of their communities,” said Michele Mariani, co-author of the special issue of Governing. “Missouri is giving them just that with its detailed breakdown of health-related data on the Web. What makes the site especially valuable is the fact that the data can help people differentiate real from perceived health threats in a time of unprecedented uncertainty.”

The state posts data profiles available on state, district and county levels for more than 25 health areas, including chronic disease, unintentional injury and hospitalizations. Governing’s report commends the state for linking the data tables to additional information citizens might find interesting, such as intervention strategies, resources and reports. The magazine adds that visitors to the site can also access a “leading problems” profile for each community.

The report also praises Missouri as a forerunner in the use of “evidence-based analysis,” to help guide decisions on which drugs or combinations of drugs are probably most effective for the people who receive pharmaceutical benefits through the state.

In addition, Missouri has expanded its children’s coverage beyond that of most other states, although it has cut back substantially on coverage for parents, which may inhibit progress made on educating entire families about the benefits of preventive care.

Governing’s analysis of state-funded health care is part of the Government Performance Project, a six-year-old effort, funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, to evaluate a wide range of state government management and policy functions. This year’s special report focuses on six critical health care problems facing states: long-term care, public health, mental health, prescription drugs, access to care for the uninsured, and care for children.

The Government Performance Project found and documented the inability of the 50 states’ health care system to deliver improvements in medicine fairly and consistently to many of their citizens. Health care in most states is not just inadequate, the study concluded--it’s deteriorating. “After exhaustive analysis and hundreds of interviews,” says Peter Harkness, Governing’s publisher and editor, “it became clear that there is a health care crisis in America. But it is in no way a medical crisis. It is a fiscal crisis.”

Governing is a policy and management magazine aimed at high-level state and local government officials. An online version of this report will be available at http://www.governing.com/gpp/2004/intro.htm as of January 29. Press releases for each of the 50 states will be indexed at http://www.governing.com/gpp/2004/press.htm.

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