Mississippi earned low marks for preventable deaths related to heart disease, hypertension, obesity, and diabetes, and high marks for declining opioid overdose deaths and school-aged vaccination rates on its public health report card for 2024. 

The state has moved to being ranked 49th in the country – up from 54th last year – in America’s Health Rankings, which were released Tuesday, said State Health Officer Dr. Daniel Edney at a press conference at the State Capitol in Jackson. 

“The number is not what’s important, it’s the lives that have been saved that this number represents,” he said. 

The annual report, which reviews the state’s health indicators and highlights areas of progress and those in need of improvement, is produced by the Mississippi Department of Health and the Mississippi State Medical Association. 

Mississippi has high rates of preventable deaths from heart disease, hypertension, obesity, and diabetes. The report estimates that over 195,000 years of life were lost before age 75 in Mississippi due to preventable deaths in 2024. 

Mississippi has long led the country in child vaccination rates, but slipped to third in 2024 following a federal ruling that decreed parents can opt out of vaccinating their children for school due to religious beliefs. 

There has been a “modest improvement” in maternal and infant mortality rates in the state, though Mississippi is ranked 45th and 50th, respectively, in those categories. Edney called the state’s high infant mortality rates “absolutely unacceptable.” 

There has been a reduction in opioid related overdose deaths in the state for the past two years, Edney reported, and the state had the 14th lowest opioid overdose rate in the nation in 2023. HIV and tuberculosis rates have also declined. 

Dr. Jennifer Bryan, the president of the Mississippi State Medical Association, said the report is “a call to action for physicians, lawmakers, and community leaders to work together to reduce preventable deaths and invest in long-term health solutions for our state.”

Bryan said she hoped to see lawmakers pass legislation addressing consumption of kratom, an herbal substance that can be bought at gas stations and produces effects similar to opioids and stimulants and can be addictive.

Bryan and Edney both declined to publicly call for Medicaid expansion but said health insurance coverage and access to primary care physicians and routine screenings are essential to ensuring the health of Mississippians. Bryan said she hopes legislators will “get creative” and find a way to ensure more Mississippians have access to health coverage. 

Lawmakers came close but did not succeed in passing Medicaid expansion during last year’s session. The state remains one of 10 to not expand Medicaid. 

Edney said that the Department of Health will focus on school-aged health promotion, obesity, diabetes and a new obstetric system of care – a not-yet-implemented program that would designate hospitals’ level of obstetric care to serve patients with varying levels of risk – in the coming year. 

The Department of Health made a small request for increased appropriations from the state Legislature for the coming year, focusing on several new programs to train early-career doctors and help Mississippians enroll in health insurance coverage. 

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Note: This essay is part of Mississippi Today Ideas, a new platform for thoughtful Mississippians to share fact-based ideas about our state’s past, present and future. You can read more about the section here.

Patients frequently show up in the emergency room at Neshoba General in Philadelphia without any health insurance.

Sometimes the issue is a bad cold, a cough or a fever — common illnesses that will go away over time, though treatment by a healthcare professional could ease symptoms. Many times, the diagnosis is much more complicated because of delayed care.

Almost all the time, the person who needs our help has a job (or two).

Last year, the Legislature filed a conference report which would have made Mississippi the 41st state to expand Medicaid, creating a payor source for patients like these. Though it did not pass, six influential lawmakers, including House Medicaid Chair Missy McGee and Senate Medicaid Chair Kevin Blackwell, signed off on the report.

Included in the language was a work requirement, with exceptions for full and part-time students, caregivers of non-school age children and others. In his first term, President Trump’s administration approved such requirements and is likely to approve them again. Under the bill, the state would not be saddled with additional financial obligations. Instead, managed care companies who stand to benefit from expansion would pay for it.

All in all, Mississippi got closer to a compromise on Medicaid expansion during the 2024 legislative session than we ever have before.

The state’s decision not to expand has been expensive for us. Federal law requires hospitals participating in Medicare and offering emergency services to screen and treat patients regardless of whether they can pay for services. Any other business forced to provide goods and services to customers who cannot pay would close.

It has also been expensive for the state. Mississippi’s labor force participation rate is usually the lowest, or next to the lowest, in the nation. When people are not healthy, they are not working. We all know the domino effect from there: less taxpaying citizens, less business growth, less economic viability, more government dependency. 

The biggest issue, though, is the personal impact not expanding Medicaid has on our friends and neighbors in Mississippi.

People who present in our emergency rooms without insurance are most always people we know in our community. They face tough decisions every day about how to use limited resources. Paying for childcare or groceries, for example, means forgoing preventative services or delaying life-saving treatment.

While the substantial increases in federal MHAP supplemental payments (funded by a tax on hospitals) have helped stabilize hospitals, the program is fragile and subject to annual renewal. More importantly, none of those funds go to help individuals under 138% of the federal poverty level (those earning about $21,600 annually) procure health insurance.

We are so thankful for the Legislature’s significant efforts and pray the conversation about Medicaid expansion continues this year. The state needs expansion to grow our work force and thrive. Hospitals, particularly in rural areas, need expansion to survive.

However, hard-working Mississippians holding down low-wage jobs that are crucial to our economy are the ones who need — and deserve — it the most.

Lee McCall is CEO of the Neshoba General Hospital in Philadelphia and chair of the Mississippi Hospital Association.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Jan. 28, 1963

Harvey Gantt became the first Black student at Clemson University in South Carolina, the last state to hold out against court-ordered desegregation. 

After graduating second in his class from Burke High School in Charleston in 1960, he studied architecture at Iowa State University and began to fight a legal battle to attend Clemson, which he won. Nine months later, Lucinda Brawley became the first Black woman to attend. A year later, they married. 

Gantt graduated with honors in 1965, receiving a bachelor’s degree in architecture and later a master’s in city planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He moved to Charlotte and co-founded an architectural firm with Jeff Huberman. Their firm developed some of the city’s most iconic landmarks, including the Johnson C. Smith University Science Center. He also broke down barriers, becoming the city’s first Black mayor in 1983. Three years later, he became a fellow in the American Institute of Architects, the highest honor given to an architect. 

Gantt continued to be active in civil rights, collaborating with activist Floyd B. McKissick to design Soul City, an experimental interracial community. In 1990, he ran against U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms and was leading in the polls against the politician who had backed racial segregation, filibustered against the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday and once called the University of North Carolina the “University of Negroes and Communists.” 

“Every race I’ve been in,” Gantt said, “I calculated race into the equation. If you’re in America, you calculate it into the equation. It is a factor. I never make it an issue. I don’t run the campaign wearing it on my sleeve, but I don’t run away from it either.” 

Before the vote, Helms aired a commercial with a pair of white hands with the voiceover declaring, “You wanted this job, but because of a law they had to give it to a minority.” 

He won with 52.5 percent of the vote. 

Today, the African-American Center for Arts+Culture in Charlotte bears the name of Gantt, who continues to urge young people to “never give up on their dreams and vision to become somebody. We all possess the potential to become successful in life, and I challenge every student to settle for nothing less.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.