Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder today introduced the latest version in an innovative series of reports on seniors in Missouri. The Missouri Senior Report 2008 provides a county-by-county comparison of how seniors fare in areas such as economic and social well-being, and health status.
"Missouri took a giant leap forward two years ago when it rolled out the state’s first-ever senior report," said Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder, the Official Senior Advocate for Missouri. "The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hailed the report as nationally innovative, a way to ensure that key information on Missouri seniors is available to those who need it for planning programs and tracking trends."
The report, developed by the Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) and the University of Missouri Office of Social and Economic Data Analysis, provides relevant senior data in one document.
The latest report, the third in the series, includes a new indicator that shows the impact seniors have on their local economies, according to Kinder. The report shows that, in most Missouri counties, seniors are more likely than any other age group to purchase appliances, clothing, electronics, and other services in their own communities, rather than in another town or state.
"This means seniors’ money is more likely to stimulate and stay in their own local communities," Kinder added.
Missouri Senior Report 2008 also shows improvement for seniors on two other economic issues in the past few years: housing affordability and poverty.
"When seniors have to spend more than 30 percent or more of their monthly income on housing-related costs, it puts a financial burden on them," said Jane Drummond, director of DHSS. "The percentage of Missouri seniors who faced this burden declined slightly last year, to 28.5 percent, as compared to 28.9 percent in 2006, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey."
The number of Missouri seniors living in poverty also improved from 2005 to 2006. Poverty is measured by the percentage of personal income that eligible seniors and persons with disabilities receive from Supplemental Security Income.
One challenge all seniors face is physically falling down, and the problem receives special attention in the report. "More than one-third of seniors who live in the community fall each year," said Drummond. "The death rate from these falls in Missouri is higher than the national average, and we have launched Show Me Falls Free Missouri to combat it."
Show Me Falls Free Missouri is a new statewide action plan that includes strategies for decreasing the burden of falls in the state.
Today seniors comprise 13.4 percent of Missouri’s population; by 2025, the number rises to 19 percent. Increases in life expectancy and aging baby boomers are at the root of the surge, which will affect Missouri communities in different ways, varying greatly among cities, suburbs, and rural communities.
Missouri Senior Report 2008 is available via the Internet at www.missouriseniorreport.org or www.dhss.mo.gov. Missouri’s 114 counties and the City of St. Louis can find specific county information by clicking on "County Profile Tabs."
The Missouri Senior Report uses the year 2000 for a base year and the year 2007 for the current year. According to that report, the total population for Daviess County is 7,963. Of that,1,196 or 15% are over the age of 65. There are 183 people (2.3%) who are over the age of 85.
The percent of the county’s population 65+ living in families is 69.3.
Of those 65 and older in the county, 81.5% live in owner-occupied housing units. Those housing units have a median value of $94,715.
The percent of persons 65+ below the poverty level is 15.4.
Percent of College Graduate or Professional Degree 65+ is 6.2.
The percent of our seniors smoking in the past 12 months is 7.4, while 34% have had no exercise in the past month; 43.2% are overweight; and 23.3% are obese. Of our elderly population 16.8% have diabetes; 31.1% have had no flu shot in the past year; and 40.7% have had no sigmoidoscopy or colonoscopy in the past decade.
As an indicator of household composition, 40.3% file a joint income tax return.
As an indicator of economic well-being, a crude estimate of personal net worth per capita among our seniors is $63,468.
Daviess County has 90 people in the workforce who are 65 and older and 7.3% of those seniors work for pay. Their average monthly earning is $1,301.
Of the county’s seniors, 1,136 (95%) have a driver’s license.
Thirty-eight seniors visited the hospital/emergency room for diabetes; and 419 for heart problems (year 2006).
As an indicator of health care access, there were 5.85 primary care physician per 1,000 seniors in the county.
Indicators of long-term care show that in Daviess County’s Medicaid paid claims for in-home care services for those 65+ in the amount of $674,735. Medicaid paid claims for nursing home facilities services in the amount of $184,961. The average Medicaid costs for persons 65+ was $719.
Seventeen persons in the county were the victims of a violent crime and 86 were the victim of a property crime.
The percent of senior households cost burdened was 36.7.
The rate per 100,000 of emergency room visits and hospitalizations due to unintentional fall injuries among Daviess County seniors is 4,082.9 to 4,963.9 (2005-2006).
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