Is Clark County Combined Health District Ignoring A Major Factor In Detrimental Numbers?
BY JEFF SKINNER
SPRINGFIELD - The City Commissioners heard a presentation at their Tuesday, September 9 meeting, to cover reporting data from the Clark County Combined Health District from Anna Jean Sauter and Gracie Hemphill. The report reviewed data collected over the last three years for the community health assessment. According to the report, the city is trailing behind national metrics in key areas such as emotional support of youth and prenatal care. However many are asking whether the report is accounting for what could be the true root of the issues.
According to Sauter, the report is compiled every three years to address top health needs in the community and investigate the return on investment for strategies to handle them. Based on the presentation, Springfield has several issues, primarily dealing with youth and well being.
“Transportation, access to care, trauma and socioeconomic instability all show up in the four pillars,” Sauter said. “What I see as the biggest part of these priorities is that youth health and youth well-being pops up in these priorities. Children in Clark County are more disadvantaged from the outset.”
According to Sauter, 23 percent of expecting mothers are not ‘receiving prenatal care’, and among those percentages, 60 percent are black. According to Sauter this has nothing to do with the doctors themselves, but rather the fact that mothers simply are not attending medical appointments, which may be leading to higher instances of infant mortality in the city. Youth homelessness is also higher than the state and county average at 6.2 percent and according to the report, nearly 42 percent of youth in the city state they have no trusted adults to speak with about emotional issues with 36 percent feeling hopeless.
However, factors examined in this report did not account for root cause analysis of the issues presented. As an example, the report from Sauter mentioned that transportation was a through line of multiple identified issues, however the City of Springfield recently revamped their public transportation system in July, getting rid of the SCAT public transit system of buses and replacing them with rideshare vans which can be scheduled and ordered on an app. While metrics are not available currently on the success of this program, anecdotal reports paint a trepidatious picture.
Little information is available for who currently drives the ‘Field Trip’ vans, but reports from residents are that they are, on average, not being operated safely, making illegal ‘U-turns’ into oncoming traffic and oftentimes the drivers will attempt to take financial information from customers they are not supposed to have. Reports are currently that the ‘Field Trip’ service is employing Haitian drivers to operate their vehicles.
At least one resident spoke at the general commission meeting regarding her concerns for how the vehicles are being operated. If transportation is a throughline of the issues presented, it certainly would not be a matter of access to it.
“I'm gonna ask about the Field trip vans,” one resident said. “Numerous occasions and sightings on our website about our inability of our field trip drivers to obey traffic laws in the city of Springfield, much less drive a van, I was told “just record their license plate. Your job is the safety and security of your citizens, those field trip vans fail miserably.”
The resident requested the city begin putting identification numbers of the vans so residents could report specific incidents and driver identification inside the vehicle for passengers to record. This would be beneficial in instances in which the drivers attempt to confiscate financial information from elderly passengers. It was additionally noted during the presentation from Sauter that traffic accidents now account for the third leading cause of death and injury in the city.
During Sauter’s presentation, one member of the commissioners asked whether the lack of grocery store access could play a factor in things like food insecurity within the city of Springfield. While Sauter agreed this could play a factor, it was not truly elaborated on how building more grocery stores would change the outcome of 'food access'.
The city of Springfield has a reported population of around 58,000 residents with, according to Google analytics, at least 10 different grocery locations from chains like Meijer, Kroger, Walmart, Aldi, Groceryland, Harmony, Gordon, Save A Lot, Market at the Ridge and others. This would not include any smaller chains or ethnic stores that have cropped up over the years. In total, the city of Springfield has somewhere between 12-20 different grocery store locations. A safe average would place the city at around 15 different grocery store locations, making the per capita average of grocery locations at .26 per 1,000 residents. To put this in perspective, Springfield has a higher average number of grocery stores per capita than Dayton (.10), Cincinnati (.11), Columbus (.22) Cleveland (.23) making the argument that some residents cannot find, locate or travel to a grocery store inaccurate.
Sauter did not state residents don't have the financial ability to purchase groceries, instead playing into the narrative of the so called ‘food deserts’, a concept stating that some geographical areas lack reasonable access to nutritious food.
As stated, Springfield has no shortage of grocery stores compared to neighboring metropolitan areas. It does however have an unaccounted for population density of additional 15-20,000 immigrants from the Haitian community which were no doubt tallied in the Health Districts surveys but not accounted for on other census tracking for population density. These individuals are currently receiving subsidized food assistance through multiple different federal agencies and federally funded nonprofits, healthcare services, transportation assistance and more. Combining this with the Field Trip ride share program costing just $2.00 per trip, the only remaining burden of grocery shopping, when all other aspects are covered, becomes just physically doing it.
If all other factors are accounted for, the only potential outlier not accounted for would be personal choice. Are certain residents who stated they are having trouble keeping food on the table and attending prenatal medical visits choosing instead to spend their time and money on other pursuits? When looking at the statistics of youth emotional support, an issue that requires no financial investment and only a time commitment from parents in the household, along with the recent rise in illegal nightclubs in the city, the idea that subsets of the population are prioritizing short-term pleasures over long-term self-sufficiency becomes far more probable.
It was recently revealed that many Haitian Markets that had popped up in recent months are allegedly operating illegal night clubs after hours in violation of ordinances, codes and alcohol distribution laws. Many tout a menu that has prices nearly three times that of licensed chains. These businesses are unique to the population and rarely permit outsiders inside while additionally charging door prices of 20-50 dollars.
During the city commission meeting, Mayor Rob Rue responded to questions about the recent citizen activity that led to the closure of one such establishment. Rue stated he could not comment on what is essentially an 'ongoing investigation.' Many residents are concerned whether the commissioners will take the issue of illegal night clubs seriously given their continued comments in public about their disdain for heritage Springfield residents over the replacement laborers from immigration programs, like the Welcome Initiative.
Given the mayors disparaging remarks about heritage residents and his perceived preference towards the imported replacement labor that has bankrupted the city, it remains to be seen whether the City Commissioners will actually uphold the law and investigate the root causes of these issues or continue to ask for more tax subsidies, perhaps this time to pay workers to physically put the groceries in people's cabinets.
