RURAL HEALTH CARE AIMS AT PREVENTION

Good, clean country living is what many Southeast Missourians enjoy in their rural environment: Fresh air, farm fields, myriad streams and ponds and wooded pastures stand in stark contrast to the concrete, steel and smog of life in the city.

Aside from aesthetics, country living always was thought to be healthier than an urban existence. But now officials are concerned about a rising number of people in rural areas who die each year from preventable chronic diseases.

In what is believed to be the first program of its kind in the Midwest, St. Louis University's School of Public Health and state and local health officials hope to implement preventative health programs in high-risk rural areas of Missouri.

Initially, the university will study a 13-county area of Southeast Missouri: Bollinger, Butler, Carter, Howell, Iron, Madison, Oregon, Reynolds, Ripley, St. Francois, Shannon, Texas and Wayne counties. Officials say people in this area have an excessive death rate -- the highest in a five-state area -- from heart disease, stroke, cancer and diabetes.

Working with a $2 million grant from the Centers for Disease Control, they hope to change that. Poverty also is a big problem in the target area, and the program, known as the Rural Chronic Disease Prevention Center, will stress the need for poor residents to make health and wellness a priority.

The most promising aspect of the program is that it will rely heavily on volunteers and organizations already in place to combat disease. In other words, the program will help rural communities help themselves.

The prevention center, one of only 12 in the United States, will serve the region through an office in Poplar Bluff. The program is an asset for the region.