Physicians from across the state are promoting early education to improve the health for Mississippians.

Local doctor and president of the Mississippi State Medical Association Dr. Daniel Edney presented the Annual Public Health Report Card with healthcare professionals and medical students from across Mississippi at the State Capitol in Jackson Thursday.

The report card, which outlines health issues in the state and how to improve them, is presented to the legislator through a collaborative effort between the MSMA and the Mississippi State Department of Health.

This year, the organizations chose not to compare Mississippi statistics to other states in the report card and instead chose to focus how to improve public health.

“It’s time to reframe the public health report card to show not only where we are and where we need to work, but actually where we want to be and where we need to be,” Edney said.

In an effort to improve public health, the state has adopted the 25×25 goal set by the World Health Organization, which is to reduce early death from noncommunicable diseases by 25 percent by the year 2025.

“This is really a wonderful opportunity to refocus our efforts, look at prevention, make sure we have a workforce that’s able to take care of Mississippi’s healthcare needs,” Dr. Thomas E. Dobbs III, state epidemiologist, said.

Noncommunicable diseases, a disease that isn’t infectious or transmissible, can be categorized into four main groups: cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, cancers and chronic respiratory diseases. These diseases are the number one cause of death and disability accounting for 88 percent of deaths in the United States.

The global plan outlines six target areas that Mississippians should aspire to reach, which are reducing salt and sodium intake by 30 percent, tobacco use by 30 percent, raised blood pressure by 25 percent, alcohol misuse by 10 percent, physical inactivity by 10 percent, as well as to seek a 0 percent increase in obesity and diabetes.

“Nine out of 10 cases of diabetes are preventable through lifestyle modifications,” Dobbs said.

Based on the 2014 Mississippi Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, 32 percent of adults reported zero physical activity in a month’s time, 23 percent of adults smoked, 13 percent of adults were diagnosed with diabetes and 5 percent of adults reported a stroke during the last year. The 2013 MRFSS states 40 percent of adults have hypertension. In a month’s time, 33 percent of high school students consumed alcohol according to the 2013 Mississippi Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System.

“We can delay hundreds of premature deaths here in Mississippi if we will only work on four areas,” Edney said.

The four ways suggested to reach the global goals and make Mississippians healthier are to exercise, eat healthy, stop smoking and limit alcohol consumption.

“Already, 116 Mississippi communities are smoke free,” Dobbs said. “We know what kind of impact that can have. If we look at Starkville and Hattiesburg immediately after they enacted smoke-free air ordinances, they saw market decreases in their heart attack rates.”

Edney said Mississippi tends to be one of the least healthy states because of lack of resources and education. He acknowledged a healthy lifestyle can be more expensive but said even just small changes can help.

“Just modest changes in those four areas make a huge impact to the health and wellbeing of our citizens and reduce the economic impact of caring for those illnesses,” Edney said. “All those illnesses are very expensive in treating and they’re not curable so we need to prevent them. That starts in elementary school.”

Children in school were taught the importance of wearing a seat belt and have been taught not to smoke, which he said has created a huge impact. Now he said it is time to start teaching kids to eat healthy and exercise moderately.

“We are strong advocates for getting physical activity back in our schools,” Edney said.

The MSMA and MSDH recommend employers provide a healthy working environment and for legislators to address health inequality, make access to care a priority, fund graduate medical education and invest in medical school.

“We need to put the attention on the segment of our population that does not have health coverage and what are the best ways to achieve that,” Edney said.