A survey comparing the overall health in the 14 counties across Massachusetts placed Hampden County in last place and ranking Nantucket's residents as the healthiest.
A family practice doctor at work. Health care remains heavy on the minds of residents in Massachusetts.A survey comparing the overall health in the 14 counties across Massachusetts placed Hampden County at the bottom of the barrel, saying the county’s residents are more likely to struggle with premature deaths, preventable hospital stays and fewer primary care providers.
Nantucket ranked the healthiest of the study, which was conducted by the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Here is what some of our readers had to say:
rt20 says: What the government will do: They will pump in huge amounts of money and the figures won't change. They will be unable to understand why all that money didn't improve the figures for teen births, gang related deaths, drug abuse, alcoholism, and STD's. So, they will instead give more money to the people in these categories directly. They'll still be confused as to why it didn't help, so they'll schedule an impact study by scholars from various universities and they'll conclude it was Bush's fault.
2xbushvoter says: Are you surprised? The state has been engaged in institutional racism against Hampden County for decades.
Why just last month Attorney General Martha Coakley's office awarded $1.5 million in health disparities grants to seven organizations across the commonwealth, including $163,000 to Cooley Dickinson Hospital and a nonprofit group out of Orange, MA.
Several grant applications came from Hampden County to promote preventive care and reduce health care disparities in Springfield and Holyoke. Please, Ms. Coakley, maybe we aren't as brilliant as Hampshire and Franklin County in our grant writing but you would think at least one award would come to Hampden County.
YocalLocal says: I'd respond, but i live in Hampden county, and frankly I'm tired, my joints ache, my back is killing me, my kidneys have failed, my liver is swiss cheese, and i have several brain tumors, so I'm just too sick to comment..
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