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Mental health; access to health care; and exercise, weight and nutrition are among the top areas for improvement identified in a new report on the health of Quad-Cities residents.
Local hospitals and healthcare providers collaborate on the Quad Cities Community Health Needs Assessment every three years. The report gives a data-driven look at community health, to help healthcare providers determine the most pressing needs in the community.
The 2024 report was released to the general public on Thursday, Oct. 31. It was sponsored by Community Health Care Inc., MercyOne Genesis, Quad City Health Initiative, Rock Island County Health Department, Scott County Health Department, Trinity Muscatine Public Health and UnityPoint Health-Trinity. Funding came from MercyOne Genesis and UnityPoint Health-Trinity.
The study includes Muscatine, Scott and Rock Island counties.
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The executive director of the Quad City Health Initiative, Nicole Carkner, said the collaborative assessment is the foundation for community health improvement.
"The new report will help us to understand priority health issues based on information provided by community residents and to develop plans that help to address those issues. We invite all organizations in our community to partner with us and advance the health of Quad-Citians," Carkner said in a press release.
The sponsors and the health care consulting firm Professional Research Consultants, Inc. used primary research, like a community health survey and secondary research, statistics and data from entities like the US Census Bureau and the Centers for Disease Control to prepare the report. PRC's online and phone surveys sampled 1,150 respondents across Scott, Muscatine and Rock Island counties, closely aligned with the population demographics of the area.
Stakeholder committees also conducted several focus groups during the summer of 2024 to complement the surveys.
The press release from the health partners highlighted some improvements over time - fewer Quad-Citians are unemployed, more have dental insurance coverage and cancer death rates have decreased.
The report also shows areas where the Quad-Cities can improve.
The 250+ page report identifies 15 significant health needs of the community: access to health care; cancer; diabetes; disabling conditions; heart disease and stroke; housing, infant health and family planning; injury and violence; mental health; nutrition and weight; oral health; respiratory disease; sexual health; substance use; and tobacco use.
The study's sponsors held three gatherings of community stakeholders in early October to examine these 15 health needs and prioritize them based on the severity of the problem and the likelihood that the hospitals can have a positive impact on the issue.
Both the report and a link to a survey can be found at http://quadcities.healthforecast.net/index.html. Prior years' reports are also available.
Below are some of the significant findings of the top five community health needs prioritized in the report.
1. Mental health
Quad-Cities residents have high rates of poor mental health by most of the measures included in the study. Nearly 30% of the residents surveyed described their mental health status as "fair" or "poor", more than 10 percentage points higher than what was measured in the 2018 report. Nearly 50% of area adults have had two or more years in their lives when they felt depressed or sad on most days, which are symptoms of chronic depression. Thirty-four percent of area adults have been diagnosed as having a depressive disorder, nearly twice as high as the statewide percentages in Iowa and Illinois.
Access to mental health care is also difficult in the area. Of adults surveyed in the total area, 12.3% reported being unable to get mental health services when they needed them in the past year, an increasing trend from 2018. Close to 40% rated the ease of obtaining mental health services as "fair" or "poor".
2. Access to health care
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More than half of area adults surveyed reported difficulties or delays in receiving needed health care in the past year. This is close to the national rate, but is an increase of around 10 percentage points for the area from the 2021 numbers.
Various barriers to access, such as finding a doctor, getting an appointment, cost of prescriptions or the visit, inconvenient hours, lack of transportation, and language barriers have all increased among survey participants from past years. The report also notes that women, young adults, people with lower incomes and LGBTQ+ people were more likely to say they had difficulties accessing health care services.
Another significant increase when compared to the 2021 report is the amount of people that skipped or reduced medication doses in the past year to stretch the prescription and save money.
About 33% of survey respondents said that they leave the area for at least some of their health care needs -- largely due to the perception of services being unavailable locally, or the perception that better care can be had elsewhere.
3. Nutrition, physical activity and weight
"Modifiable health risks" like nutrition, amount of exercise and weight were the third priority identified in the report. Of total area adults surveyed, 25.6% said that it was "somewhat" or "very" difficult to access affordable fresh fruits and vegetables. Respondents with very low or low incomes had a much higher rate of difficulty buying produce than those with middle or high incomes.
Quad-Citians generally do better than the national percentages in some regards when it comes to exercise, but worse in others.
Nearly 25% of adults surveyed reported no leisure-time physical activity -- physical activities outside of work like walking, gardening or golfing -- in the past month. While this seems high, it is about average when compared to Iowa numbers, and is about 5 percentage points lower than the national rate. The trend for Quad-Citians that meet the physical activity recommendations has been slightly increasing when compared to health assessments from previous years, but is also lower than the national percentage by about 5 percentage points.
One third of total area residents reported that they never use local trails for walking, hiking or biking.
Nearly three fourths of the adults in the area are overweight based on Body Mass Index, meaning they have a BMI greater than or equal to 25. This is about 10 percentage points higher than the country as a whole. Nearly 45% of area adults are obese, meaning they have a BMI value greater than or equal to 30. This is also about 10 percentage points higher than national percentages. From heights and weights reported by surveyed parents, nearly 40% of children in the area are overweight or obese, also about 10 percentage points higher than national percentages.
4. Diabetes
More than 15% of adult survey respondents report being diagnosed with diabetes, and over 13% have been diagnosed with pre-diabetes. The prevalence of diabetes has been steadily increasing since the first community health report in 2002, and the report says that the numbers are highly correlated with age, with older age brackets having much higher rates of diabetes.
5. Heart disease and stroke
Heart disease was the cause of about 20% of all deaths in the area in 2020. Around 12% of surveyed adults reported that they have heart disease, about two times the Iowa and Illinois statewide rates, and a few percentage points higher than the national rate. The prevalence of heart disease has increased by more than 4 percentage points from the 2021 report.
Over 40% of adults surveyed have been told by a health professional that their blood pressure was high, and over 35% have been told that they have high cholesterol. Nearly 90% of adults reported one or more cardiovascular risk factors.
Stroke deaths and prevalence are both lower than national percentages.
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