Novant Health hosts forum on Columbus County health

COLUMBUS COUNTY, NC (WWAY) — With Columbus County again ranked the unhealthiest in North Carolina this year, in an effort to fight this ranking, a healthcare provider held a forum Monday night to address health issues adversely affecting residents.

Novant Health held a free ‘State of Your Health’ forum for county residents. The forum hoped to educate people about how to improve their health.

County leaders are concerned and hope that forums like this can make a difference.

“Well, we are ranked number 100 out of the 100 counties, and that’s not where you want to be,” said Kim Smith, the Health Director of Columbus County. “We are in dead last. So, we have nowhere to go but up. And so people have to take responsibility for their own personal health and that will help get the county up a couple of notches.”

Panelists for the forum included Smith, as well as several Novant Health physicians and experts in diabetes, hypertension and obesity care.

The Novant Health forum worked to identify pre-diabetes, high blood pressure, and obesity … which health experts say are the three most preventable killers.

For the last four years, Columbus County has ranked last in the state in health outcomes, according to the “County Health Rankings & Roadmaps” report for North Carolina produced by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute.  In the 2012 Community Health Assessment, 42 percent of respondents reported suffering from a chronic diseases