A look at several key health issues facing the city:
• Infant mortality -- In recent years, the District has made substantial progress; its infant death rate in 2002 was its second-lowest. With that decrease came a decline in the teen birth rate -- a 44 percent drop from 1990 to 2000 -- and advances in other measures contributing to newborn health.
The Developing Families Center in Northeast has helped reduce the number of low-weight babies and Caesarean-section births.
(James M. Thresher -- The Washington Post)
|
|
At the D.C. Developing Families Center, a cheerfully refurbished grocery store in Northeast, women can receive prenatal care, deliver their babies and later enroll them in child care. "We've seen a lot of positive change," says founder Ruth Lubic, noting that the numbers of low-birth-weight babies, preterm babies and Caesarean births at the center are well below city and national averages. "I'm not depressed about the disparities," Lubic said. "There's a lot more we can do with them."
• Breast cancer -- Since the Capital Breast Care Center opened in Southeast in late 2003, providing mammogram screenings in a city with alarming incidences of breast cancer and breast cancer mortality, four women have been diagnosed with malignancies there. Two of them knew for years that they had lumps but "felt there were no resources for them," said program manager Monique Hitch.
The average age of the center's clients is 49, yet 80 percent of them had never been screened before they walked in the door. The center has passed out fliers at supermarkets, churches, beauty shops. Hitch wonders, "Maybe we should change our message: If you don't get screened, you have a higher chance of dying."
• HIV/AIDS -- The District's HIV/AIDS epidemic represents the fifth-highest rate nationally. "It is a staggering statistic," said Cornelius Baker, past head of the Whitman-Walker Clinic in Northwest. He traces the problem to a complex confluence of blacks' lingering distrust of the health care system; a young, sexually active population; a transient gay population; and cross-border drug traffic. Women make up a quarter of those infected.
Yet Baker also points to the "tremendous success" in building a treatment infrastructure within the District and getting people into care "and keeping them from dying." The millions of dollars that requires, however, takes a tremendous toll on the city. Prevention, he believes, has to be the No. 1 message. "This is an ongoing, collective crisis."
• Addiction -- One in 10 District residents -- an estimated 60,000 men, women and teenagers -- is addicted to alcohol or drugs. "There are so many people who are sick. It brings the whole community down," said Najiya Shana'a, executive director of Neighbors Consejo, a social services organization in Northwest. Yet the city is falling far short of its goal to reduce substance abuse by 25,000 people by 2007, she said.
Neighbors Consejo recently began the city's first inpatient addiction treatment program for Latinos. Its 20 beds already have a waiting list. Participants will remain for six months, at which time the program hopes to have employment, health care and housing lined up for them. Said Shana'a, "Many view it as another chance at life."
-- SUSAN LEVINE
