DHEC holds S.C. Live Healthy Data Walk

DHEC held it's S.C. Live Healthy Data Walk data to show key findings of current public health data collected from the state health assessment survey and reports of communicable diseases from doctors and labs around the state. 

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WOLO) — DHEC held it’s S.C. Live Healthy Data Walk data to show key findings of current public health data collected from the state health assessment survey and reports of communicable diseases from doctors and labs around the state. 

The data reveal there is room to improve health in South Carolina. The data shows findings on a wide range of health issues such as HIV, diabetes, cancer, and as well as non-medical factors such as employment, housing cost, and food insecurity which DHEC officials say can influence a person’s overall health. Doctor Brannon Traxler with DHEC says the data shows disparities across the board. 

“I think that infant mortality and maternal mortality are two that are very alarming to me, that is the start of life with babies. So, when you’re seeing the disparities that we see among racial and ethnic groups with infant mortality, overall infant mortalities improved in South Carolina but the disparity worsened.”

Doctor Traxler says the data walk helps DHEC and its health partners determine the most critical indicators of health and set improvement goals.