County's 'health' is poor, compared to overall state data

By Jennifer McBride - Leader Staff

Exercise, drinking less alcohol, and being more careful behind the wheel should top county residents' New Year's resolutions, if state data on the county's health is any indication.

Lake County's population may be aging, but its people are also dying faster and younger than they are in the rest of Montana. While the three leading causes of deaths statewide are heart disease, cancer and cardiovascular disease, the three leading causes of death in Lake County are heart disease, cancer and vehicle accidents.

According to the Montana Department of Health and Human Services, which released its annual, two-year, county-by-county health profile for 2006, Lake County residents are twice as likely to die in motor vehicle accidents than anyone else in Montana. On average, in Lake County, 52.3 people died in car accidents per 100,000 population, while the Montana average is 24.5 accident-related deaths per 100,000.

The new rate is a dramatic increase over 2002, when 38.8 Lake County residents died in car crashes per 100,000 people. But, drinking and driving rates are also increasing. In 2002, 15.7 percent of vehicular crashes involved alcohol. In 2006, 17.4 percent of motor vehicular crashes involved alcohol. This nearly doubles the Montana average, where 9.7 percent of motor vehicle crashes involve alcohol.

Data was obtained by surveying a sample of people, then extrapolating that data to a per-100,000 person rate. The county has about 30,000 residents, so a rough estimate of actual numbers can be obtained simply by dividing by three.

Outside of car accidents, average lifespans in Lake County tend to be shorter than in Montana as a whole. The median age of men who die in Lake County is 74, one year younger than the state median age at death at 75.

Women in Lake County die at a median age of 78, compared with Montana's median age of 81. The only people with longer lifespans in Lake County than the rest of Montana are American Indians, who die at a median age of 76 compared to the overall median in Montana of 60-years-old.

Teen pregnancy rates have also increased from 49.4 teen births per 1,000 teen females in 2004 to 50.6 teen births in 2006. This is almost twice the Montana state average of 35.9 births per 1,000 teen females.

Sexually-transmitted diseases (STDs) incident rates are also higher in Lake County than Montana. In Lake County, there were 345.2 reported incidents per 100,000 compared with Montana's statewide STD-rate of 217.8 reported incidents in every 100,000.

First trimester pre-natal care has dropped slightly in Lake County from 78.9 percent in 2004 to 78.2 percent in 2006, while pre-natal health care in the rest of Montana has risen to 83 percent. Infant mortality, however, has decreased from 12.6 infants in every 1,000 live births to 9.9 infants in every 1,000 live births. This is still above the U.S. average on the whole (9.3 deaths per live births) and well above Montana's rate of 6.2 deaths per live births — one of the lowest state infant mortality rates in the nation.

Medicaid usage has also dramatically dropped. In 2004, 19.3 percent of the population had its health costs covered by Medicaid. Now, that number is 13.1 percent.

Not all the news is bad. Employment rates and incomes are both soaring. From 2004 to 2006, the Lake County unemployment rate has dropped from 6.7 percent to 4.5 percent. The change still leaves Lake County with one of the highest county unemployment rates in the state, albeit well below the national average. Lake County's median household income also increased, rising from $28,740 to $31,450, outstripping the national average inflation rate from 2004 to 2006 by about 2.5 percentage points. Per capita income has also risen from $19,545 to $28,297.

Cancer rates are also lower in Lake County than in Montana as a whole, even as cancer diagnoses have increased from 422.8 diagnoses per 100,000 people in 2004 to 447.5 diagnoses in 2006. There are 30 fewer diagnoses per 100,000 people in Lake County than in Montana as a whole. Death from heart disease in Lake County has also dropped from 254 deaths per 100,000 in 2002 to 217.1 deaths per 100,000 in 2006. This is slightly higher than the Montana average, which is 212.2 per 100,000.

Suicides have also decreased. In 2002, 26.4 people killed themselves per 100,000 people here in the county. In 2006, that number was 19.1 deaths per 100,000. This is slightly higher than Montana's 2006 rate of 19.0 suicide deaths per 100,000.

In the past two years, Lake County's population has also grown by about 1,300. Birth rates are slightly increasing. In 2004, there were roughly 13.2 children born per every 1,000 people. In 2006, 13.4 infants were born for every 1,000 people. The largest and fastest growing segment of the population are people age 45-64, which compose about 28 percent of Lake County's 28,300 population. People 45 and older are now 43 percent of Lake County's total population, compared with 41 percent three years ago. Fewer people are dying— in 2004, there were 9.7 deaths per 1,000 people. In 2006, there were only 9.5 deaths per 1,000 people.