Health center to battle high heart disease rate

The center will examine the roots of Appalachia's health problems.
ATHENS, Ohio (AP) -- A new health center opening next year in southeast Ohio will combat high rates of heart disease and diabetes among Appalachian residents.
Construction on the Cornwell Center for Cardiovascular and Diabetes Care will begin this fall, officials announced Friday. The facility, expected to cost $2.5 million to $3 million, will be attached to O'Bleness Memorial Hospital and is expected to be completed by late spring. It is funded in part by a $1.2 million donation bequeathed by longtime Athens residents Foster Cornwell and his wife, Helen.
The center will provide services that Appalachian residents currently have to drive hours to obtain, such as cardiac catheterization, a procedure that detects blocked arteries.
"You come there, and you get everything," said Mitchell Silver, a Columbus heart doctor who will serve as the center's director.
Study
The center also will study why people in Appalachia have higher rates of heart disease and diabetes than the Ohio and U.S. populations and why they suffer more complications from them. It will teach preventative measures such as good nutrition.
For example, in Vinton County 55 miles southeast of Columbus, 13.4 percent of residents are diabetic, according to an unreleased study by the Appalachian Rural Health Institute. That's almost double the U.S. rate of 7.6 percent and higher than the 9.1 percent among Ohioans.
Brooke Hallowell, co-director of the rural health institute at Ohio University, said she believes Appalachia's health problems are due to lack of insurance, poor access to care and cultural patterns.
A 2001 study from the Ohio Department of Health indicated that Appalachian counties have among the highest rates of residents who are killed by coronary-heart disease.
Kimberly Halterman fits the profile of the type of person the new center wants to help.
The 37-year-old is poor, overweight and an insulin-dependent diabetic. She didn't go to a doctor until a social worker got her a Medicaid card.
Having access to good, local medical care is important, Halterman said.
"I think it would be great for people around this area," she said of the center. "Because they just can't afford running back and forth to Columbus."