Counties in Southeast Missouri are Hotspots for Cancer

Scott and Stoddard counties are among the counties in Missouri with the highest instances of cancer in the state. The Lower Mississippi Delta is also a hotspot within the country for the highest colorectal cancer death rates.

It’s what a 2015 study published in the journal “Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention” found. And it’s what the Community Health Needs Assessments (CHNA) conducted by Saint Francis Healthcare System, SoutheastHEALTH and the Cape Girardeau County Public Health Center are working to decrease as they educate people in the region and solve issues related to public health throughout the CHNA target area, which includes Bollinger, Cape Girardeau, Scott and Stoddard counties.

Community Health Needs Assessments are conducted every three years by the hospitals to comply with requirements for federal tax exemptions under the Affordable Care Act. The hospitals and health department work together to collect primary data through focus groups and surveys given to people in demographics representative of the region. They then analyze the data on their own to identify what they determine are the greatest health concerns in the region and to then create plans of action.

Saint Francis Healthcare System’s CHNA reports cancer is one of the leading causes of death in the region, with breast, colon, lung and prostate as the four most common types found in Southeast Missouri. Although analyzing the reasons why hotspots experience higher rates of cancer was not a focus of the CHNA research, Saint Francis Healthcare System is working to educate people about the importance of having regular cancer screenings such as mammograms and colonoscopies, as well as other preventive measures such as smoking cessation.

“Research is not conclusive, but it seems [the higher cancer rate in hotspots is] a combination of many things — economic, hereditary, environmental, behavioral, educational,” says Christy LeGrand, development officer/grants administrator for the Foundation at Saint Francis Healthcare System.

With this in mind, the priorities identified by Saint Francis to focus on through 2022 include obesity in adults and children, heart disease, mental health, cancer and health care affordability. Their strategy to help bring down the rates of cancer in the area include, among others, offering programs for smoking cessation, healthy eating and weight management, which they have put into practice in part through the opening of the Fresh Healthy Café; offering free or reasonably-priced cancer screenings, including a tax credit program offered by the Missouri Department of Economic Development — Neighborhood Assistance Program which is supported by the Dig For Life fundraising; SPOT ME free skin cancer screenings offered annually and the MammVan collaboration with University of Missouri. The hospital also offers free CT scans for lung cancer screenings through the tax credit program, as well as other free cancer screenings.

To provide access to health care for patients in need, Saint Francis Healthcare System provides a variety of transportation services, including coupons to purchase gasoline to drive to cancer treatments, arrangements for Medicaid patient transportation and public and private transportation arrangements.

SoutheastHEALTH operates on a different fiscal year from Saint Francis Healthcare System, so their CHNA is due December 31, 2019. The action plan they create from their assessment will be available to the public once it is approved by the SoutheastHEALTH Board of Directors later this fall.

The Cape Girardeau County Public Health Center also conducts a CHNA periodically, although theirs is part of their accreditation process rather than a step in meeting the requirements of the Affordable Care Act, in addition to the purpose of Public Health. Between October 2018 to February 2019, community stakeholders, partner agencies and Board of Trustees members joined the Cape Girardeau County Public Health Center staff to review the findings from the 2018 Community Health Needs Assessment, considering the impact of the problem, the urgency of the problem and the size of the problem in determining the issues they would prioritize moving forward. The public health priority Issues identified were mental health, wellness and prevention — including substance abuse, adult and childhood obesity, smoking, dental health and chronic disease care — and access to care with a focus on transportation.

In regards to eliminating cancer in the region, the Cape Girardeau County Public Health Center has a rural health clinic with a full-time family nurse practitioner who provides well-woman care, including screening for breast and cervical cancers. The health department also works with the Southeast Missouri Cancer Coalition to provide educational information to citizens about cancer and its prevention.

“Through the Community Health Needs Assessment, we are able to review and identify not only specific disease conditions that are impacting our population but also take a look at what is available in our jurisdiction to address it,” says Jane Wernsman, RN, BSN and director of the Cape Girardeau County Public Health Center about the importance of conducting Community Health Needs Assessments throughout the region.

Stay tuned to the happenings in the community to see the ways the hospitals and health department are implementing their focus points and plans from their Community Health Needs Assessments. If you would like to view the interactive maps that display information concerning “dynamic views of cancer statistics for prioritizing cancer control efforts across the nation” from the National Cancer Institute, visit their website.

To read Saint Francis Healthcare System’s CHNA report, visit their website. SoutheastHEALTH’s report can be found here. And the Cape Girardeau County Public Center’s can be read here.