LUCAS COUNTY, Ohio — Healthy Lucas County released the results of its 2022/2023 community health assessment Tuesday, a report surveying the status of physical health, mental health and more among residents in the county between November 2022 and July 2023.
Healthy Lucas County is a coalition of community organizations that works to improve the health of all Lucas County residents, according to its website. The survey, which is conducted every three years, is designed to identify the status of health and wellbeing in the county.
The 284-page report was compiled with data parsed from mailed and online surveys given to randomly-selected Lucas County residents of all ages, with enough of a sample size to represent county-wide demographics. The purpose of the assessment was to identify the health-related priorities of Lucas County residents, in addition to addressing disparities.
"Our coalition conducts a health assessment every three years so our member organizations and partners can identify the health-related needs and concerns of Lucas County residents of all ages," Erika D. White, chair of the Healthy Lucas County Executive Committee. "If we want to improve our community's health, we have to routinely assess what our biggest challenges are."
In the assessment, Healthy Lucas County broke down responses into statistically significant data sets. However, because of sample sizes the margin of error for some groups of results, such as Black and Latino groups or some age groups, were higher than the county-wide margin of error. As a result, the organization cautioned readers when interpreting data sets.
Additionally, as with all surveys, limitations exist; these include dishonest answers to be more socially acceptable, insufficient sample size for some groups or inaccurate self-assessment, among others.
Below are some highlights of the survey and assessment. The entire assessment is embedded at the end of this story.
Selections from report
Insurance
Across Lucas County, adults were insured at a greater rate than in the 2020 survey. While 6% of adults were uninsured in 2023, 8% were uninsured in 2020. In 2017 and 2014, 6% and 14% were uninsured, respectively.
Although nearly all individual groups (divided among sex, income, age and race) were uninsured at a rate less than 15% in 2023, 22% of adults aged 30 and under were uninsured. Black men and Black people age 30 and under were also uninsured at rates of 20%, while Latino adults were uninsured at only 3% in 2023.
Uninsurance rates among all Lucas County adults have been under 10% since 2017.
Adolescent health
Surveys regarding youth (grades 6-12) health and behavior were provided to some students through a random sampling process at seven participating schools in Lucas County. According to Healthy Lucas County, two districts opted to remove sections regarding student sexual health and behavior from the survey, limiting the sample size.
The surveys found youth alcoholic drinking behaviors county-wide remained the same at 12% county-wide since 2019, though nearly a third of students 17 and older said they had at least one alcoholic drink in the last month. Binge drinking was also reported as the same rate as 2016 and 2019 at 7% of responses.
Adolescent marijuana use saw a decrease over the last six years: 9% of respondents said they had used marijuana in the last month, down from 10% in 2016 and 12% in 2019.
Mental health
According to the assessment, 15% of Lucas County adults experienced symptoms of depression for more than two weeks in the past year. Among adults with incomes less than $25,000 per year, 20% experienced those symptoms. A quarter of Lucas County adults under the age of 30 reported experiencing those symptoms.
Among adolescents, 34% reported depression symptoms for two or more weeks, while 42% of adolescent females reported feeling depressed.
The assessment also found that 4% of Lucas County adults and 11% of adolescents seriously considered attempting suicide in the last year. For youth, this number is down from 17% in 2019. In 2020, 5% of adults in Lucas County reported considering attempting suicide in the past year.
Maternal and infant health
In a press release highlighting the results of the assessment, Healthy Lucas County indicated 80% of Lucas County parents up to 5 years old put their child to sleep in a crib or bassinette without a bumper, blankets or stuffed animals; similarly, 80% reported putting their infants to sleep on their backs, all of which are practices to prevent sleep-related infant deaths.
In 2020, the assessment reported that only 77% put their child to sleep in a crib or bassinette without a bumper, blankets or stuffed animals, indicating an increase over three years. However, in the 2020 survey, 90% of parents put their infant to sleep on their backs.
The full report from Healthy Lucas County is included below:
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