Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick appoints Dying Before Their Time Task Force. Task Force Home Page
Senior citizens and those approaching senior status in Michigan's urban areas are dying faster than seniors in the rest of the state, sometimes more than twice as fast as their non-urban counterparts.
This accelerated mortality rate is believed to account for nearly 40% of the loss of 43,816 older adults in the Detroit area between 1990-2000 and is associated with poor access to care as well as delays in seeking care for chronic and other conditions by those who cannot afford health care.
These and other related findings emerged from studies conducted for the Detroit Area Agency on Aging and the City of Detroit Senior Citizens Department by Wayne State University research teams.
In additional research commissioned by the Detroit Area Agency on Aging, similar findings were found to exist in several out-Wayne County communities. This new research also found that home and community-based senior care management services (MI CHOICE Medicaid Waiver) in Wayne County have a strong benficial effect on health and disease management. Study findings convincingly demonstrate reduced use of certain health resources (hospitalizations, emergency room visits and non-scheduled doctor and clinic visits), increased compliance with use of medications (in spite of an increase in the number of medications reported over time) and delayed nursing home placement.
These findings show that care management programs can and do make a difference in communities that have poorer measures of overall population health status such as Detroit and parts of Wayne County.
To learn more about these and other related findings, please CLICK HERE.