Health survey results months away

Area health care providers could be months away from having a clearer picture of Southern Louisiana’s need for services.

Data collection for the 2006 Louisiana Health and Population Survey has been completed. That data, which includes the Tri-parishes, is currently going thru the Louisiana Public Health Institute’s Data Analysis Division, said Greg Stone, the LPHI program manager.

“We have relied on the Center for Disease Control and the US Census Bureau, the groups who do this kind of thing for a living, to teach us to do this right,” Stone said. “After the data is collected it has to be analyzed. We won’t be ready to pass the data to the Louisiana Recovery Authority and the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals for at least two months.”

Once the data has been analyzed it will be up to the LRA and the DHH to allocate funding based on the survey’s results.

DHH’s Jonathon Chapman said, “That the survey is going to gauge the health care trends affecting all people who were displaced by hurricanes Katrina and Rita, as well as the parishes affected by the 2005 hurricane season.”

Although the LPHI is accountable to the survey’s two main stakeholders n the LRA and the DHH n Stone wanted to emphasize that the survey is designed to benefit areas impacted both directly and indirectly by the 2005 storms.

“The LPHI is interested in sharing this data with all non-profits that are designed to assist the affected communities,” he said.

This survey will also have national implications as well.

According to Chapman, the Department of Homeland Security “is interested in the results of this survey. They believe the survey results could affect national emergency preparedness and bio terrorism contingency planning. There are a lot of potentially far reaching ramifications to the results of this survey.”

No matter how the post-storm numbers vary from those compiled before the hurricanes hit, area health care officials already know there’s a strain on the local system.

“Terrebonne and Lafourche Parishes’ were included in this survey because of the number of evacuees these respective parishes took in and the continuing effect those evacuees have on these parishes’ health care systems,” Chapman said. “Ultimately this survey is about identifying shortcomings in healthcare and rectifying those shortcomings to provide better healthcare to all the people of Louisiana.”