By Rob Moritz
Arkansas News Bureau
LITTLE ROCK — Taking a disturbing health report to heart, one state lawmaker set out to improve conditions in the Arkansas Delta — and took the challenge personally.
Sen. Jack Crumbly parlayed his concern about the health report lawmakers received at the beginning of this year’s General Assembly into a new law to examine ways to improve overall health in his native eastern Arkansas.
“The thing that stuck with me was that there is a 10-year disparity in life expectancy between people who live in Benton County and people who live in Phillips County,” the Democrat from Widener said, recalling state Health Director Paul Halverson’s report.
In his presentation to the Senate Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee, Halverson noted that a baby born in prosperous Northwest Arkansas can expect to live to be 80.1 years old, while a baby born in Phillips County has a life expectancy of 70.1 years.
In several other Arkansas Delta counties, life expectancy is 73 years or less, the health director said.
Widener is in St. Francis, and Crumbly’s district also includes parts of Lee, Phillips and Crittenden counties.
Armed with Halverson’s statistics, Crumbly successfully pushed legislation that became Act 358 of 2009, creating a special committee to examine ways to improve health across the state and particularly in the Delta, home to some of the poorest counties in the nation and some of the highest mortality rates in the state.
The Senate health panel’s Minority Health Subcommittee meets for the first time Thursday at the J.F. Wahls Elementary School in Helena-West Helena.
In the meantime, Crumbly has taken on the challenge of improving his personal health, shedding 48 pounds since February using the same weight-loss program at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences that former Gov. Mike Huckabee used to lose more than 100 pounds.
Down to 300 pounds, Crumbly says his goal is to drop another 50 pounds by exercising and eating right.
“It’s really a lifestyle change,” he said Wednesday, one in which he no longer takes high blood pressure medication and has cut his diabetes medication in half.
“I want people to see it does work,” Crumbly said. “We hope to get people aware and to get them to take charge.”
At the subcommittee meeting Thursday evening, lawmakers are to be briefed on Arkansas health issues by Dr. Joseph Bates, deputy director and chief science officer of the state Department of Health, and Dr. Creshelle Nash, medical director for the state Minority Health Commission.
The public is invited to attend the meeting and participate in a question-and-answer session, Crumbly said, adding that a variety of health information also will be available.
The subcommittee is scheduled to meet in several other Delta counties over the next few months in developing a set of goals, objectives and programs aimed at decreasing the health disparity across the state. The law requires the panel to report its recommendations to the governor and Legislature by Oct. 1.
“We want to find out what is the disconnect,” Crumbly said. “We need to stop talking about this and do something about it. We have to work on solutions.”
