National Diabetes Month: Preventing Diabetes Problems

How many Mississippians do you know? Is it more than seven? If you said yes, then you probably know someone with diabetes. 1 in 7 Mississippians have diabetes. That’s about 333,000 people, which is why diabetes is a priority at UProot.

At UProot, we talk a lot about preventing diabetes, but today we want to discuss National Diabetes Month and how to prevent the problems associated with diabetes.

Video Courtesy of the National Institute of Health

Diabetes is a chronic disease, but it also causes other chronic conditions. National Diabetes Month is a time for communities across the country to bring attention to diabetes. This year’s focus is on taking action to prevent health problems associated with diabetes.

Everyone can benefit from taking charge of their health. For those with diabetes, it’s especially important. Taking charge can help prevent diabetes health problems.

The changes in blood sugar caused by diabetes can damage your kidneys and blood vessels, leading to high blood pressure and other cardiovascular problems.

Problems can pile on. High blood pressure and kidney damage lead to other chronic conditions, and these aren’t the only problems diabetes can cause. Some are well known, such as neuropathy, kidney disease, and eye problems.

However, people may not think about the links between diabetes and depression, cancer, and sleep apnea.

Fortunately, most health conditions that result from diabetes can be prevented or managed by the same changes that manage diabetes itself.

A healthy diet.
Daily exercise.
Medication.
Monitoring and managing blood sugar.
Monitoring and managing blood pressure.
Keeping cholesterol low.

Managing diabetes can be hard. If you feel down, sad, or overwhelmed, learn about healthy ways to cope with stress. Consider talking to a mental health counselor or joining a support group.

Medication can help with all of these problems, and for many people, it may be necessary. Be sure to talk with your doctor or pharmacist if you have trouble taking your medicines on time or at the correct dose.

These changes may seem intimidating, but they’re easy enough for the average person to achieve – and much less daunting than the problems the disease can cause.

It can seem daunting at first, but most of these changes are small, sensible, and available to people at any age.

Lifestyle changes include things like calorie counting, food substitutions, and of course, moderate physical activity, like walking outside daily. Over months and years these small changes really add up. The Mississippi State Department of Health Office of Preventive Health and Health Equity partners with healthcare providers to offer free classes in these health basics for diabetes prevention and management.

These changes become a part of our culture when Mississippians come together to support each other in making them a part of their everyday life – for themselves and others.

Diabetes exists at the intersection of the three pillars of UProot’s plan to improve the state’s health:

Obesity
Chronic Disease
Social Determinants of Health

Preventing diabetes – and the health conditions it can cause – goes beyond National Diabetes Month!

Read through the updated State Health Improvement plan and find a way to help Mississippi reach our goals. You can read our news section to see success stories and if you know of a health improvement in Mississippi, let us know!

Creating a Culture of Health: Health Literacy Month

One of our goals for improving the health of Mississippi is to increase health literacy. Health literacy is a Social Determinant of Health, and improving it was one of the original goals we set in 2022, and updated in 2024. What IS health literacy, and how can we improve it?

Thankfully, October is Health Literacy Month, a time to recognize the importance of making health information easy to understand and the health care system easier to navigate.

So, what is health literacy? Health Literacy is when you can find, understand, and use information on health-related decisions and actions for yourself and others.

Here, we’ll see:

How to find health information.
Communicating in a Healthcare setting.
How to find, use, and understand information with the example of nutrition labels.

Finding information

Health literacy begins with finding information. According to the CDC, more Americans than ever are using information technology to communicate with their healthcare providers. That is one of many reasons why one of our goals at UProot is to expand broadband internet access.

However, just having an internet connection doesn’t mean that you can find useful information. Much of the information available online is poor quality – at best.

Even quality, factual information may not be of use. For example, you may go online and learn a number of great ways to prevent high sodium from increasing your blood pressure. You can use food nutrition labels to help avoid sodium. However, if high sodium isn’t the cause of your high blood pressure, then that information, while good and factual, does not help you.

This is why communication with a healthcare provider is so important. It is the best way to ensure that you can properly use the information you find. This may be during a regular checkup, a call or email to your doctor, a visit you schedule, or a telehealth appointment.

Communicating in a Healthcare Setting

However you do it, communication is key to understanding public health. But health literacy isn’t just for patients and the general public. That’s why one of our goals is to provide more health literacy training for healthcare providers.

Doctors, nurses, and other professionals go through a great deal of training and education that requires them to understand a specific set of language and concepts. This vocabulary and mindset allows them to communicate effectively and efficiently – with one another.

Even a careful and competent healthcare provider can slip into jargon, or believe that the patient in front of them understands what they are talking about.

For the provider, health literacy is more than just defining terms and explaining health conditions. It requires time to connect with a patient, talking to them, and making sure that they understand the instructions for their medication routines and special diets.

Patients who are health literate are more likely to trust their provider, especially if that provider is a source of easily understood, jargon-free information.

As a check, healthcare providers often ask patients to describe HOW they will follow instructions. Getting more providers to do this is a goal for increasing health literacy.

*For pediatricians, communicating with parents is key.*

This isn’t just for doctors explaining neurology. Pharmacists, insurance company representatives, and other healthcare navigators should all take steps to orient the public on what is happening during an encounter, and limit their use of jargon.

Example: Nutrition labels

Nutrition labels on packaged food are a great example of health literacy. Finding them is easy enough. Understanding them is the second step. Fortunately, it’s not particularly difficult, and there are new requirements to enhance their readability. These requirements ensure that caloric content is centered, and in bold print.

Understanding other aspects of the nutrition label involves a concept known as the “recommended daily value.” This is exactly what it sounds like, an amount that the USDA has determined to be a healthy amount for the average American.

Actually using nutrition labels, however, can be a bit more involved. Each label will give the amount in a single serving, and it will tell you how large that serving is, and how many servings are in the container. You don’t have to eat a serving. You can eat more or less, and this changes the way that you use a nutrition label.

This is where things can get confusing. Take this example. If the serving size is given as 2/3 of a cup, and you eat half that – 1/3 of a cup – then you would half everything on the label. 115 calories, 5% of your total daily fat, 10% of your added sugars, etc.

But there are 8 servings in this container. You could eat two servings, or 1 & 1/3 (4/3) cups. This would be 460 calories, 20% of your daily fat, 40% of added sugars.

People who have different needs for things like sugar and sodium will have to do a little more work. You may need only half as much sodium, or more iron than average.

Food labels have been designed to be easy to find, understand, and use. They are one of the most commonly encountered bits of health information.

Get involved!

Most health information is a little harder to find than nutrition labels!

You or your organization can get involved with these efforts to improve health literacy – a social determinant of health. Health literacy leads to better health outcomes, and more trust in doctors. With the goal of health literacy in mind, you can tailor your public health activities to help people find, understand, and use health-related information.

After all, Health Literacy when you can find, understand, and use information on health-related decisions and actions for yourself and others.

Whether you’re trying to enhance health literacy in yourself or others:

Remind others that information online should be vetted with a healthcare professional.
Practice proper communication in a healthcare setting.
Remember nutrition labels as an example of how to find, use, and understand information.

Communication is a two-way street. Listen to your community, then see what community health measures work by visiting the “What Works” page, which has accessible fact sheets on many health issues, including obesity and Social Determinants of Health, available online or to be printed out.

Read through the updated State Health Improvement plan and find a way to help Mississippi reach our goals.

You can read our news section to see success stories and if you know of a health improvement in Mississippi, let us know!

Creating a Culture of Health

Last month, we took a look at how UProot’s mission has evolved in the past couple of years. One important way to address the social determinants of health is to screen infants and children for many of the conditions that can be easily prevented or treated in childhood.

One of our goals for 2024 is to increase the number of these childhood screenings in Mississippi. There are two tools currently on the table that are helping communities near you to reach this goal: Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visitations (MIECHV) and Medicaid screenings.

Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visitations (MIECHV)

MIECHV is a home-visitation program for families with children up to five years of age. A new program will let families in 16 counties take advantage of free support from trained professionals, if they choose to.

These professionals teach skills like safe sleep for infants, breastfeeding, and can connect families to childhood and postpartum health screenings.

We know that these at-home visits work. They are a proven method for reducing infant and maternal mortality and childhood diseases, and can improve the health of the mother.

MIECHV works on a system where parents take the lead. This system, “parents as teachers” is an evidence-based model for informing parents.

Interested parents or families can sign up here. If your county will have the MIECHV program available, make sure that your community knows about it.

Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnostic and Treatment (EPSDT )

Our partners are also working with Medicaid to get more Mississippians into Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnostic and Treatment (EPSDT ) programs.

EPSDT provides things like physical exams, immunizations, lab tests and health education. These simple and cost-effective steps make a big difference in health, especially when done for children and adolescents, who are more likely to be covered by Medicaid.

What’s Next?

You or your organization can get involved with these efforts to prevent disease and health problems, and improve our social determinants of health. Help drive signups for MIECHV if you’re in a target county.

See what community health measures work by visiting the “What Works” page, which has fact sheets on many health issues, including obesity and Social Determinants of Health, available online or to be printed out.

Read through the updated State Health Improvement plan and find a way to help Mississippi reach those goals.

You can read our news section to see success stories and if you know of a health improvement in Mississippi, let us know!

UProot Updates

Updates to the State Health Improvement Plan for 2024

Since the inception of UProot, our plan to improve the health of Mississippi has been transparent. Transparency is key to how UProot works. Our partners can’t help improve health without knowing the plan.

Our 2022 State Health Improvement Plan, which we call the SHIP, was the result of years of study and collaboration between the Mississippi Department of Health and more than 70 partners. The SHIP undergoes regular updates, but we’ve remained focused on our two main goals.

The first is battling obesity to prevent and manage chronic disease. Obesity is a root cause of many chronic illnesses. Therefore, it is the role of public health professionals to inform and educate Mississippians about this threat.

The second is to address the Social Determinants of Health (SDOH). SDOH are the conditions and environments in which people are born, live, learn, work, play, worship, and age. They affect a wide range of health, functioning, and quality-of-life outcomes and risks. SDOH have a major impact on people’s health, well-being, and quality of life.

Each goal in the SHIP is developed by experts in the subject matter, working with appropriate UProot partners.

Priority: Obesity and Chronic Disease

In 2024, we are moving to decrease obesity rates through the reduction of food insecurities. In order to do that, we want to know where food insecurity is happening. Once these areas are identified, we will be able to better investigate the root causes. By sharing that data with policy makers, legislators can make data-driven decisions.

Diet is one part of our first priority. Exercise is another. UProot wants more students to achieve 30 minutes or more of moderate and/or vigorous intensity physical activity daily.

To help, UProot partners will be promoting UProot’s “10 Healthy Power UPs” campaign, working with Move 2 Learn, and leveraging the Mississippi Healthy Students Act. Additionally, partners will evaluate school wellness policies and health councils.

Priority: Social Determinants of Health

When it comes to Social Determinants of Health, we have added a new focus: increasing access to preventive health services. This means working with Medicaid to get more Mississippians into Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnostic and Treatment (EPSDT ) programs. EPSDT provides things like physical exams, immunizations, lab tests and health education. These simple and cost-effective steps make a big difference in health, especially when done for children and adolescents, who are more likely to be covered by Medicaid.

There are also an array of SDOH improvements on the table, mostly involving healthcare providers and insurers. These include:

Increasing the percentage of people under 65 who are insured.
Making telehealth available to more people.
Licensing telehealth services for more providers and for new services.
Health literacy training for healthcare providers.
Getting better health literacy training to more patients.
More intellectual/developmental screening services for children from 9-35 months old.
To track, and increase, the number of organizations providing training that mitigates implicit bias.

Everything we’re doing – new or established – is designed to improve the culture of health in Mississippi. Our goals are here for everyone to see, and find a place to get involved. Together, we can continue to meet our health goals, develop new ones, and reach even further to improve Mississippi’s health.

Galloway Family Farm: Growing More Than Just Food

One of the pillars of our work at UProot (you can read about it in our State Health Improvement Plan) is to tackle Food Insecurity. Food Insecurity is when people do not have enough quality food to ensure their health. This can mean insufficient food, or that the only available food does not provide the variety and nutrition required for good health.

More than just a farm

The Galloway Family Farm grows healthy food, but it’s more than just a farm. It’s also an education center where Tracy Galloway, a third-generation farmer, teaches school groups, church groups, and anyone else who visits. He doesn’t just show how food is grown; he also teaches them how eating better can lead to better health.

*Galloway, overlooking sweet potatoes on heavily mulched ground.*

“Food does not come from 3 Bs and a C. It doesn’t come from a box, a bag, a bottle or a can. It comes from the earth. People aren’t connected to their food.” Galloway said. It’s a phrase he’s been saying for years, to drive home a message about the connection between good food and good health.

Galloway Family Farms offers regular farm tours they call “Farm Tour and Fellowship,” with fresh herbal tea, seedling sales, and homemade art made from found materials. There are also farm-to-table dinners and camping, and the farm is available for hosting events.

Strength through diversity

Just as the farm grows many crops in case one or more fail, having diverse sources of income and public interest keeps them from becoming dependent on any single source.

There are a lot of crops. Galloway boasts of being able to get 22 ingredients for a salad – including chicken – within 120 feet of his back door. “There’s a lot going on in this one acre.” He said.

By harnessing multiple means of impactful community engagement, Galloway Family Farm is helping create healthier outcomes and improving our state’s health. Click here to learn more about Galloway Family Farm. Be sure to follow them on Facebook and Instagram for updates on their work!

We love learning about new local efforts that improve our state’s health. If you have a success story send it to us!

Sun Safety for You and Your Community

School’s out, and so is the sun, all day long. While outdoor activity is important for good health, too much sun exposure can lead to skin cancer. Prevention is a crucial component of a culture of health. Preventing skin cancer requires protection from UV rays all year, not just during the summer. UV rays can reach you on cloudy and cool days, and they reflect off surfaces like water, cement, and sand. There are many ways to protect yourself from the sun, and it’s important to use more than just one.

What You Can Do For Yourself.

Timing: In Mississippi, peak summer sun is usually from 10 AM to 5 PM. Avoid lengthy outdoor activities during this time, and ensure you have extra protection during these hours.

Shade: Shade from trees, umbrellas, tents, or shelters provides a lot of UV protection. Depending on the type of tree or fabric that creates the shade, this can be as effective as a weak or strong sunscreen. It’s important to use sunscreen even when you’re in the shade.

Clothing: While specialty clothing for sun protection does exist, all clothing provides some protection from the sun. Long sleeves and pants protect more than short, and dry clothing protects better than wet. Clothes made from tightly woven fabric offer the best protection. Use cover-ups to protect yourself at the beach or when you frequently go from pool to poolside.

Hat: The wider the rim, the more protection a hat will offer. Hats, rather than caps, have the added benefit of also protecting your ears. If you’re wearing a cap, protect the back of your neck with clothing and/or sunscreen.

Sunglasses: Your eyes are vulnerable to the sun as well! Not only your eyeballs, but the sensitive skin around them. Sunglasses can help.

Sunscreen: Remember the sunscreen! Put on a broad-spectrum sunscreen that filters out UVA and UVB rays and has an SPF of 15 or higher before you go outside. Put a thick layer on all exposed skin. Remember, sunscreen works best when combined with other options.

What You Can Do for Your Community

See which of these 19 Evidence-Based Cancer Control Programs (EBCCPs) are best for your community.

Two effective points of contact for sharing sun safety information are schools and workplaces.

For more information, visit the CDC page on sun safety.

To determine if your public health programs are evidence-based, HHS runs a program called The Community Guide. Their “What Works” fact sheets cover a wide variety of topics in public health, including skin cancer prevention.

If you know of someone out there who is working hard to make Mississippi a healthier place, let us know!

Utica Food Club: Fighting a Food Desert with Community Organizing

Access to quality food is crucial to UProot’s highest priorities: obesity and the social determinants of health (SDOH).

After a grocery store left Utica, Mississippi, residents organized to address the fact that their community had become a food desert.

Utica: From agricultural haven to food desert

Since the ’90s, the economy and population of Utica have been declining. Schools and plants closed, ending relationships with the local Sunflower grocery store and leaving fewer people to travel into town as customers. Finally, in 2014, the store closed, turning Utica into a food desert. The nearest grocery store was in Clinton, 30 miles away.

In 2023, the Mississippi Free Press interviewed Jean Greene of Utica as part of a story on food deserts. When asked about the grocery store closure, she said, “It was an economic decision… And so the rest of us paid the price for that economic decision.”

Though the grocery store’s closure was the final step to becoming a food desert, it was a shock to long-time Utica residents. Like many towns in Mississippi, Utica has a long history of food production and agricultural education.

Last century, Utica was home to the Utica Institute, founded in 1903 by William H. Holtzclaw, an agriculturalist whose mentor was Booker T. Washington.

*Holtzclaw sought to educate African Americans in Mississippi’s “Black Belt” by replicating the Tuskegee educational experience.*

The Utica Institute became Utica Junior College, which merged with Hinds Community College in 1982. Until 2014, the town hosted the Hinds County Agricultural High School, part of the Hinds Community College system.

Utica only has a population of around 600. The town didn’t think a large grocer would be willing to come, so they investigated some alternatives.

The town organizes

Enter Sipp Culture, a group founded in Utica to use arts and culture to help the town solve its food crisis. They partnered with the municipal government and started a farm, a community garden, and a farmer’s market.

That was only their first step. They found another partner, the Jackson Hinds Comprehensive Health Center, and launched a program to support rural artists. This action earned them a large grant from One Nation/One Project, an organization that leverages the arts to create healthier people and communities.

“Sipp Culture believes that gathering and sharing local stories is the best way to support safe and thriving communities for the future.”

How did the community come together and start this project?

First, they gathered the community and listened. As demonstrated by Operation Shoestring, listening to the community is vital for any effort towards improving SDOH. Sipp Culture needed to see what the community wanted to do. They made sure that representatives from the culture, agriculture, business, education, and local government sectors were on hand when they held community meetings.

Using those tools, they determined where people were shopping, and what drove their decision to do so. They discovered that people were driving up to an hour just to buy fresh meat and produce.

They then researched models for alternatives to big grocers. Many of the future members of the Utica Food Club had known of or done business with a cooperative grocery in Jackson. Others had used farmer’s markets and community gardens.

Then, they identified the items that people wanted to purchase in bulk. They focused on staple foods, which are easily transported and stored without refrigeration.

Next, they identified vendors who would sell them, and began the task of figuring out where these staple items – and harder-to-store things that would require refrigeration, could be housed. The storage question was helped by their partnership with the municipality, which knew what buildings were suitable for the project – and available.

After that, the group began to exchange information and ideas. They discussed strategies and techniques for storing and transporting food, preserving it and making bulk purchases. They coordinated those purchases, becoming a food-buying club. Food buying clubs are a way for individuals to purchase food at wholesale prices, and then split the purchases up, circumventing a traditional grocer.

While the buying club, farmer’s market, and community garden have all helped to address the food desert in Utica, there is much more to be done. For now, Sipp Culture and the Utica Food Club are researching more and seeking financial and educational support from the FDA, the USDA, and co-op support organizations. Their partnership with One Nation/One Project and the artists supported by Sipp Culture’s Rural Performance Production Lab have shown them the power of these relationships, and now they are seeking out local churches to recruit volunteers and further support.

In 2023, Sipp Culture hosted the international musical youth of OneBeat.

lessons for your community

The lessons learned from the Utica Food Club echo those of the ARK and Operation Shoestring: Teamwork and homework.

Listen to the community.

Identify partners.

Do the research.

Find a model you can emulate.

Every step was driven by community education and the equal exchange of information. Food deserts are a crisis in Mississippi, one that many UProot partners attempt to address.

If you know of someone out there who is working hard to make Mississippi a healthier place, let us know!

Solutions for Food Insecurity Will Take Many Partners: 2023 Mississippi Hunger Summit

The 2023 Mississippi Hunger Summit was an example of Mississippi public health organizations doing what they do best: coming together as partners to address our state’s critical issues.

In October 2023, the University of Mississippi CREW (Community First Research Center for Wellbeing & Creative Achievement) hosted the Mississippi Hunger Summit. Food access was a key component of the summit. As shown in presentations, food insecurity is an issue with effects that affect everything from mental health to education performance to obesity and health outcomes. With so many issues affected, welcoming input from a wide range of partners offers the best opportunity for innovative solutions.

Food Insecurity is linked to type 2 diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, stroke, and dementia. It also has a direct link to obesity. The reason is simple: When good food is hard to come by, families have no choice but to eat poorly. You can measure the accessibility of fresh, wholesome food in an area, and in many places in Mississippi, a lack of this constitutes what is known as a “Food Desert.” The distribution of these areas makes Food Insecurity a classic example of a Social Determinant of Health (SDOH).

Watch a clip from the opening remarks here:

Food Insecurity and Mental Health

Since hunger touches on many aspects of health, there was much to discuss, including the role of hunger and food insecurity on mental health. There are many connections between nutrition and mental health. Some are more obvious, such as the role of blood sugar in alertness or how the brain uses B vitamins and omega acids. Others are less obvious. Scott Hambleton, MD, Medical Director of the Mississippi Health Plan, also discussed the connection between the gut and the brain, a new area of interest that may become a powerful way of understanding mental and physical health that links both to the conditions in a community.

Food Insecurity’s Effects on Children

Children are especially vulnerable to food insecurity. The interplay between mental health, physical health, and the environment is precisely the sort of scenario that the SDOH concept attempts to address.

From Dr. Hambleton’s presentation; “Nourishing the Mind: The Connection Between Nutrition and Mental Health”

Uproot Partners in Action

Several UProot partners attended. The Mississippi Food Network presented information about food pantry resources.

While many people want to help with food insecurity, it takes skill to provide food safely and effectively for many people. These requirements, why they are in place, and what they achieve, were the focus of one of MFN’s presentations.

The 430 agencies that are part of the Mississippi Food Network are a testament to the number of people helping with food insecurity in Mississippi. It’s a big problem, and one a large number of Mississippians are eager to end.

To learn more about how to partner with the Mississippi Food Network, go to their website.

View a slideshow of photos from the 2023 Hunger Summit here.

You can help, too. UProot is all about ways to build a healthier Mississippi.

Education: A Tool to Tackle Diabetes

November is National Diabetes Month, which focuses on diabetes prevention. Learning about simple lifestyle and nutrition tips can help manage or even prevent the onset of diabetes for Mississippians. We can all benefit when we educate ourselves about diabetes.

First, the basics: there are two types of diabetes. Type 1 diabetes usually develops early in life, due to genetics and the environment. It cannot be prevented. This type is rare: only one in two hundred people has type one diabetes. One in seven Mississippians is diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. Type 2 develops later in life as a response to insulin levels brought on by obesity, a lack of physical activity, and genetics. There are more than twice as many people with diabetes in Mississippi than live in Jackson.

Misunderstandings about diabetes and its dangers persist. You may have heard “diabetes isn’t that bad” from someone who’s had it for years and keeps saying “well, it hasn’t killed me yet.”

Yet diabetes can lead to death, blindness, and amputation. But most insidiously, diabetes makes other health problems harder to treat, from high blood pressure to simple wounds. It dramatically increases your risk of other health conditions such as heart attack, stroke, and kidney disease.

New treatments and techniques are successful at putting type 2 diabetes into remission. These days, type 2 diabetes – the kind that develops later in life – can be put into remission with a regimen of medication, weight loss, and exercise. People are finding freedom. The earlier you start these interventions, the more effective they are, so it’s vital to get regular checkups from a health care provider. The Mississippi State Department of Health offers free blood glucose checks at every county health department. Walk-ins are welcome, or you may call 855‑767‑0170 to schedule an appointment.

A final misconception is that the lifestyle changes that prevent and manage diabetes are too complicated or difficult for the average person to achieve.

While the changes can seem daunting at first, most of them are small, sensible, and available to people at any age. The Mississippi State Department of Health offers free, small group, classes to address the challenges of preventing and managing diabetes. To learn more about these offerings visit www.healthyms.com/diabetes

These changes become a part of our culture when Mississippians come together to support each other in making positive changes. Uproot Mississippi, a collaborative effort between nearly a hundred partner organizations across the state, works to build a culture of health in Mississippi. If you think you need help figuring out which steps are right for you, and how to take them, there are lots of individuals and communities across the state providing homegrown inspiration. Visit www.uprootms.org/ican for more information.

Start Here to Learn Everyday Wellness Tips

We all know what the new school year means for children returning to class, but there are opportunities for Mississippians of all ages to learn, too! From managing chronic diseases to improving your overall health, free classes are available with the latest information. Read on for resources that make everyday wellness easier, and prove that it’s never too late to learn something new, especially when it comes to your health.

Getting Familiar with Chronic Disease

The first step to building any health plan is getting familiar with the health conditions that impact your day-to-day life. Knowing how actions, foods, or lifestyle habits can affect your progress is essential to pin down before taking that first step.

In Mississippi, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and obesity are the most common, and most deadly, chronic diseases for residents. Cardiovascular disease, including heart attack and stroke, is the third leading cause of death for Mississippians. Diabetes affects 1 in 7 Mississippi residents, and is made worse by obesity, which affects 42% of adults in the state. Click here to learn more about these chronic conditions.

Mississippi State Department of Health

From workshops on self-managing chronic disease to preventative health resources, the Mississippi State Department of Health (MSDH) offers a variety of tools that make building healthy habits easier. These resources are free and help take the stress out of taking that first step toward wellness.

Health Management Classes

For those looking for more guidance on making healthier choices, there are free health management classes available. These aren’t bootcamps–they are programs that meet national standards and offer real, sustainable, and actionable ways to improve your day-to-day food and exercise habits. Check out this interactive site map to see what classes are available in your area!

Spread the Word

Sharing this article with someone you know–a neighbor, friend, or family member–not only helps them reach their personal health goals but can have a positive ripple effect on our state’s health. So, spread the word, share resources, and help inspire those in your network to take that first step to building healthier habits.

Ask your doctor about help enrolling in free preventive health classes. Or download this form and bring it to your nearest MSDH health center.