Life or Death? –
December 23, 2019 – “Like a butterfly effect”
Health data for Belmont County show that the county ranked 50th of 88 Ohio counties for health outcomes. As with the rest of the state and the U.S. overall, Belmont County is seeing a trend of people dying younger, as life expectancy dips. … “They’re losing years of potential life that they could have been a productive citizen in the county,” says Linda Mehl, director of nursing with the Belmont County Health Department. There is no one factor behind these numbers: Smoking, obesity, alcohol abuse and organ system diseases all contribute, along with drug overdoses. Broader economic conditions factor in, too. Over the years, the Ohio River Valley has seen the bottom fall out of the coal and steel industries — the engines that built these towns and that used to employ tens of thousands of workers. “It’s kind of like a butterfly effect,” says Daniel Grady, public health emergency preparedness coordinator with the Belmont County Health Department. “People lose their jobs. They lose their health insurance, so that means preventative care takes a hit. And then, just the depression and everything that goes along with losing a job. Everything spreads out from something like that.”
