<img src="http://www.joplinglobeonline.com/images/zope/extra.gif" border=0>State report ranks counties on important senior issues<font color="#ff0000"> w/ link to Missouri Senior Report </font>

Home

Related Photos

Discussion

January 20, 2008

Anonymous The Joplin Globe Sun Jan 20, 2008, 09:39 AM CST

By Wally Kennedy

wkennedy@joplinglobe.com

An invasion of sorts is under way in the Joplin area, but you wouldn’t know it unless you looked at the Missouri Senior Report for 2007.

The report indicates the senior population in Southwest Missouri is growing because of migration into the area. The population of seniors age 65 and older has grown about 4 percent in five Southwest Missouri counties between 2000 and 2006.

Lillian Hermann and her husband, Harry, are among them. They have been married 57 years and are both in their late 70s. They moved to Joplin in September after living 13 years in Roswell, N.M.

“We moved here because our daughter moved here and our son lives in Cassville,” she said. “But those aren’t the only reasons.”

When their son moved to Cassville, they would stay in a motel on South Range Line Road when they came to visit him. They checked out Joplin while they were here.

“We nosed around and found the people here to be warm, outgoing and friendly. They were very helpful,” she said. “The feeling we got was that it was a nice place.”

When their daughter got a job as a teacher in Joplin, they decided it was time to move because if they waited any longer it might have become too difficult to move because of their age. It wasn’t easy to leave Roswell.

“We had access to health care there. It’s a retiree’s town. They bent over backwards for you there. There was a senior discount for everything,” she said. “And it was fun. Harry and I had our own alien driver’s licenses.”

The Hermanns probably would not have moved if Joplin hadn’t been so attractive. They liked the selection of retail stores. They liked the fact that Joplin is growing, citing the 600 jobs that AT&T; has brought to the city. They liked the way their Realtor treated them and the affordable home they found. And, they liked the choice of restaurants.

‘Having a ball’

“We are trying a new restaurant every Friday evening. We are having a ball. We can’t believe the delicious, wonderful and tasty restaurants that are here. It is something we are enjoying very much,” she said.

When told the Missouri Senior Report — the first of its kind in the nation — can be a planning tool for the future of a community, Hermann said she understood why that is important: “There’s going to be a lot of old folks around for a long time because health care is getting better and better. You have to take that into consideration.”

Charisse Pappas, a spokeswoman for the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, which compiled the report, said: “The surge in the senior population is the biggest public policy issue of our time. Seniors will outnumber youth and children for the first time in history by 2050.

“We need to know how big this population is going to be. The growth of the senior population is bigger than anything we have ever had before. How are we going to deal with it?”

Bill Elder, with the health department, said the key indicators in the report were developed by seniors during 50 town hall meetings across the state.

“We knew we needed good information about the continued aging of our population because our society is about to go through the long-awaited maturation of the ‘Baby Boom’ generation,” he said.

“We needed a set of basic indicators to talk about the quality of life for seniors across different communities. Could we identify the factors where we could take steps to improve the long-term, well-being of seniors?”

County scores

More than 500 seniors participated in the meetings. They suggested a few key indicators from which each of 114 counties in the state would get a composite score. The seniors said household composition, economic well-being, workforce participation, transportation, health status, healthcare access, long-term care, crime and housing were key indicators.

Elder said most would think that workforce participation in old age would be a negative indicator, but to seniors, workforce participation indicates they are staying engaged.

“It’s continued social engagement — not the money — that’s important,” he said.

In terms of health status, one might think cancer rates or heart health would be important indicators. The seniors said diabetes was far more important because it is trending in the wrong direction in the state overall.

“Adult-onset diabetes is something that can be prevented through more activity and nutritional programs,” Elder said. “Diabetes also is related to other adverse health conditions. They looked at diabetes with an eye toward what can be done to improve the situation.”

Local findings

Findings for Southwest Missouri counties include:

Newton County ranked fourth among all counties in Missouri on key senior indicators. It also had one of the highest rates of primary care physicians per 1,000 seniors in the state.

Jasper County was ranked 71. One of the areas where it fared poorly was its property and violent crime rates.

McDonald County’s senior population grew 5.1 percent between 2000 and 2006, and like Newton County, it had a high rate of primary care physicians, but it also scored poorly in the property and violent crime category. It ranked 36th overall.

Data for Southwest Missouri shows growth in the senior population, specifically those age 65 and older.

“Most of Southwest Missouri has seen in-migration of seniors,” he said. “That has fueled economic development in that part of the state and helped offset the loss population when younger people leave.”

What’s important to note, he said, is that the birth rate during The Depression and World War II was extremely low before it exploded with the baby boomers.

“The 65 and older population is actually contracting a bit nationwide, but it is growing in Southwest Missouri because of the in-migraton of seniors,” he said. “That contracting is about to turn dramatically in the other direction with the baby boomers.”

The seniors, who are moving to Southwest Missouri, are moving there, in part, because they “have a greater demand for hospitalization.”

Elder said hospitals are growing in Southwest Missouri because of that, but they are consolidating in northern Missouri where the senior population is shrinking.

The senior report, he said, can help Southwest Missouri get ahead of the curve on the aging population.

“Missouri is the first state to take on this initiative. Other states are looking at this,” Elder said. “The federal Centers for Disease Control has applauded Missouri’s work and has lifted it up as a model on how to prepare for the growth in the senior population.”

Senior poverty

Percentage of seniors living in poverty in 2000:

McDonald: 17.2 percent

Barton: 16.8 percent

Barry: 11.9 percent

Lawrence: 11.8 percent

Jasper: 10.3 percent

Newton: 9.5 percent

Source: Missouri Senior Report