Changing habits may offer hope of living longer

Changing habits may offer hope of living longer

published September 15, 2006 12:15 am

North Carolina fared poorly in a new longevity study released Monday, ranking 40th among the 50 states. Out of 2,072 counties studied, three from North Carolina ranked among the 50 where lifespans are the shortest. Edgecombe ranked 50th from the bottom, Robeson ranked 29th and Martin ranked 25th. With the exception of South Dakota, where people in six counties have the shortest life expectancy in the United States, the counties that claimed most of the spots in the bottom 50 belonged to Southern states. Seven counties in Colorado were among those with the highest average life expectancy 81.3 years. By comparison, people living in the six South Dakota counties on the bottom have an average life expectancy of 66.6 years. Comparing states, Hawaiians live longest, an average of 80 years. People living in Mississippi have the shortest life expectancy at 73.6 years. For North Carolinians, it’s 75.8 years. As the study’s chief author, Dr. Christopher Murray, of the Harvard School of Public Health, noted, those are significant differences if you’re talking about your parent or your spouse. It can mean the difference between being around for the significant events in a grandchild’s life or having time to enjoy life after retirement.

That makes it critical that every effort be made to understand why people in North Carolina don’t live as long as people in 39 other states.

The Harvard researchers who conducted the study analyzed mortality figures provided by two federal agencies, covering the years 1982 to 2001, for county, gender, race and income. The data came from the Census Bureau and the National Center for Health Statistics, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Dramatic disparities

The study found some truly dramatic disparities in longevity — more than 30 years. Longest-lived are Asian American women living in Bergen County, N.J. They have an average life expectancy of 91 years. On the other end of the scale, Native American men living in South Dakota have an average life expectancy of 58 years.

Murray said he was surprised to find that lack of health insurance explained only a small portion of the gaps.

Differences in alcohol and tobacco use, blood pressure, cholesterol and obesity seemed to drive the death rates, he said.

It will be important to pinpoint geographically defined factors, such as shared ancestry, dietary customs, local industry and propensity toward physical activity that influence those health risks, he said.

“Something very geographic is going on,” but typical analytic methods miss that part of the story because researchers tend to look at race, income and education, but rarely at place,” he said.

“Some really interesting patterns aren’t related to those usual factors.

“Perhaps it is shared ancestry or the way people make a living. The tricky part is figuring it out. It is not simply income and race.”

Other studies

In the meantime, other Harvard studies provide clues about some of the factors that contribute to longevity. In one study, jointly conducted by Harvard and the University of Athens Medical School in Athens, Greece, and released in 2003, researchers found that those who strongly adhered to a Mediterranean diet had improved longevity compared to study participants who did not follow that diet as closely. The traditional Mediterranean diet consists of an abundance of vegetables, legumes, fruits, nuts and cereals and regular use of olive oil, moderate amounts of fish and dairy products (mostly yogurt or cheese), small amounts of red meat and moderate consumption of alcohol, usually in the form of wine consumed at meals.

Another study, released in 2004, found that both weight and exercise are strong and independent predictors of premature death in women. The word “independent’’ is important here. The study found that a high level of physical activity did not eliminate the risk of premature death associated with obesity and that being lean did not counteract the risk of premature death associated with inactivity. (Those participants who exercised more than 3.5 hours per week were considered physically active.) Compared to physically active, lean women, inactive and obese women had nearly a two and half-fold increase in their risk of premature death.

Changing lifestyles

In other words, whatever other factors may be in play – genetics, environmental risks, etc. — exercise and healthy eating habits contribute to living longer than a person otherwise might. That’s reassuring because those are factors we can control.

But, more than two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese, which suggests that there are factors in our environment that undermine the goal of eating well and exercising.

We all know what they are — high stress jobs, too much television, an infrastructure that encourages driving everywhere instead of walking or bicycling, fast food.

It may be that further studies will prove otherwise, but the evidence so far suggests that if we’d change our lifestyles, we’d add years to our lives.

http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060915/OPINION01/60914015/1194

Thought for the day

"All the stones that are around here, each one has a language of its own. Even the earth has a song." ---- Wallace Black Elk, LAKOTA

 To believe that every tree, plant and insect can talk takes an open mind. Go by yourself into nature and sit quietly. Then pick up a rock and listen to your thoughts. After a while, put that rock down and pick up another rock. Your thoughts will change. These are the voices and wisdom of the Stone People. Each one has different wisdom and they are willing to share their wisdom with you. Many of the Stone People are very old and very wise.

Native Women working for wellness

Native women working for wellness
Members of Cherokee, Creek tribes praised for dedication

PHOENIX AZ
Native American Times 9/7/2006

A member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation is the top American Indian physician, according to an organization representing Native doctors, and a Cherokee woman from the Oklahoma town of Muskogee is being lauded for her efforts to assist Indian Country’s poor people.

Dr. Kelly Moore was declared 2006 “Indian Physician of the Year” during the Association of American Indian Physicians’ annual conference in St. Paul, Minn.

Moore’s “support of [the association], her contributions to the organization’s activities, and her outstanding personal accomplishments as an American Indian physician were recognized with this award,” said association executive director Margaret Knight.

Moore said she was “honored to receive this award,” and pledged to “continue my support to the mission…in the pursuit of excellence in Native American healthcare. It is also my privilege to continue to work with our members to inspire and motivate American Indian and Alaska Native students to become our next generation of medical professionals and health policy leaders.”

A 1983 graduate of the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine, Moore is a clinical consultant with the Indian Health Service Division of Diabetes Treatment and Prevention in Albuquerque. She began her career with HIS on the Navajo reservation in Arizona, eventually moving to become clinical director and sole pediatrician for the Pima Indians of the Gila River Indian Community of southern Arizona. While there, she became interested in the growing public health concern of type 2 diabetes in American Indian youth and began her first experience in clinical research. Since that time Moore has worked in HIS as a medical administrator and diabetes consultant.

Also on the frontlines working to provide healthcare to disadvantaged tribal members is Dawn A. Kelly, an HIS optometrist. Kelly, a uniformed officer of the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, works on five Native American reservations in the Southwest, two of which are designated as “isolated hardship locations”-a government term meaning, as the name suggests, communities where poverty is a pervasive problem. She iscurrently based in the Arizona town of Parker.

Kelly said she views her work in the areas a “taking care of family.”

The corps aims to dispatch trained healthcare professionals to needy areas and have them respond to emergencies and provide patient care.

http://www.nativetimes.com/index.asp?action=displayarticle&article_id=8149

Ruling clears way for suits over tribal housing

 

Ruling clears way for suits over tribal housing

By JENNIFER BYRD
Associated Press Writer

BROWNING — Candice LaMott calls her house "poison."

There's black mold under the sink, holes in the walls and a foundation made of chemically treated wood, conditions she believes are responsible for illness in her family and even her mother's death.

"When she got this house, she just thought it was a mansion," LaMott said of her mother, from whom LaMott inherited the house. "She didn't care that the wood was going to kill her."

LaMott is one of a number of low-income Blackfeet tribal members who sued the tribe's housing authority and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in 2002 to have their houses, which were built in the late 1970s, replaced.

U.S. District Judge Sam Haddon dismissed both lawsuits in 2004. But a recent ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit of Appeals is giving the homeowners some hope. That panel reinstated the lawsuit against the tribal housing authority.

The ruling is drawing attention throughout Indian Country because of its reasoning. The 9th Circuit said the Blackfeet tribe waived any claim to sovereign immunity in the ordinance that created the tribal housing authority. Lawyers say identical language is present in the founding documents of most tribal housing authorities around the nation.

"I think with this lawsuit, a lot of doors will open to Native Americans," LaMott said. "No longer should we stay in this type of home. We do live in America, but it's just a whole different world right here."

About 150 houses on the reservation were built in the 1970s with wooden foundations that were treated with arsenic and other toxic chemicals as preservatives. The plaintiffs allege that the use of the wood foundations caused their homes to deteriorate, and that the conditions of the homes have caused severe health problems, including asthma, kidney failure and respiratory problems. LaMott's mother, Dorothy, died of kidney failure about five years ago.

The families purchased or leased the homes through the HUD Mutual Help and Homeownership Program, which was designed to address housing needs of low-income American Indian families.

To be eligible for federal grants, the tribe had to form a housing authority charged with alleviating the shortage of "decent, safe and sanitary" housing.

The plaintiffs claimed that HUD required the use of wood foundations over the objection of tribal members and that both HUD and the housing authority failed to live up to the program's obligations.

Haddon dismissed the lawsuit against HUD, ruling he lacked jurisdiction to hear the matter. He dismissed the case against the tribal authority, ruling that it had sovereign immunity.

A three-member panel of the appeals court, however, disagreed, saying the Blackfeet tribe waived its immunity in this case when it signed an ordinance creating the housing authority in the '70s.

While LaMott and her neighbors are pleased with the court's decision, it is causing a buzz among American Indian legal experts who say it conflicts with decisions by other courts and could have unintentional consequences for all tribes.

"It's a case that is decided in the right way, but for the wrong reasons," said University of Montana law professor Raymond Cross.

"There certainly is a sense on the court that they need to provide some remedy for these Indian homeowners, and that's certainly understandable. Yet the legal means by which they do it, I think, are going to create more problems than solutions in the long run."

Cross said the ruling opens federal courts up to hearing cases that typically would be heard by tribal or state courts. And, he said, it opens tribal housing authorities to lawsuits from both tribal and non-tribal members.

"I think the lower federal district courts are not going to thank the 9th Circuit for doing that," Cross said.

Steve Doherty, the housing authority's attorney, is asking the full appeals court to rehear the matter. If the court refuses, an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court is likely, Cross said.

The appeals court pointed to a clause in the ordinance, saying it was "a clear and unambiguous waiver of tribal immunity." Many Indian law attorneys who represent tribal housing authorities are concerned by that finding, said Richard Guest,a staff attorney with the Native American Rights Fund in Washington.

"I would say the vast majority of housing authorities have that law on their books," Guest said. "It's that ordinance and that language that is the concern because that was boilerplate, it was standard. HUD required tribes to adopt that specific language or they wouldn't get federal funding."

Jason Adams, executive director of the Salish and Kootenai Housing Authority on the Flathead Indian reservation, said he was disappointed the court essentially let HUD "off the hook" for any responsibility for the poor condition of the homes.

"HUD had an obligation to assure that those families were getting decent safe and sanitary homes," Adams said. "Them being released of any liability, I think, is a travesty; that's just terrible."

Susan Hammer, executive director of Ute Indian Tribal Housing Authority in Utah and a board member of the National American Indian Housing Council, also said HUD should be held responsible in the case.

"HUD has a huge responsibility here and should have stood up with and for the tribe," Hammer said in a written statement. "During the times that these homes were built, every single decision had to be submitted and approved by HUD. The locations, the clients, the house plans, the environmental issues, all of that was controlled by HUD."

Jane Goin, a HUD spokeswoman in Denver, declined comment because the case is pending. Attempts to reach Ray Wilson, executive director of Blackfeet Housing, for comment were unsuccessful.

While the appeals court ruling was a small victory, LaMott and her neighbors know it is far from the end of the battle. Even if they get a jury or judge to agree the tribal authority needs to repair or replace their homes, there's the bigger question of who would pay for it — since most of the housing authority's funding comes from HUD.

"It would be robbing Peter to help Paul because that money is marked for other housing needs," said Mary Ann Sutton, a Missoula attorney representing the plaintiffs.

The real problem, Guest said, is that Congress is simply not putting enough money toward Indian housing needs.

"In this day of huge deficits, one of many programs being cut is money to Indian housing," Guest said. "Money isn't being provided to remedy this kind of problem."

But the appeals court ruling may be a small step toward rectifying the problems, Sutton said.

"It gives the tribal members a measure of accountability which, in our position, should have always been that way," she said.

As winter approaches, LaMott wishes the lawsuit would move along quicker so she could get a new home that doesn't have cracks in the walls and holes around the doors that let cold air in.

She understands the legal process takes time, but frustration is setting in for her and her neighbors. They see new housing projects go up around the reservation for other residents and wonder why that money can't go to fixing or replacing their homes.

But, LaMott said, she has no choice but to stay in the house she considers dangerous because she has no other options.

"This is the way we live," LaMott said. "People need to know about this. We're just like foreigners in the United States. There's no way this type of housing would be allowed on the outside (of the reservation.)"

Originally published August 27, 2006

http://www.greatfallstribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060827/NEWS01/608270303/1002