Mississippi’s new state health officer is sharing his priorities as he takes on this role. He wants to reduce health disparities and opioid deaths, as well as extend post-partum healthcare.
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Dr. Edney shared this graph showing how Mississippi compares to others states in terms of health disparities. Mississippi ranks at the bottom.
Mississippi’s now former State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs left his office in late July, and the Department of Health is now welcoming Dr. Dan Edney to fill this role. A physician from Vicksburg, he has more than 30 years of experience in medicine and has previously served as Deputy State Health Officer and Chief Medical Officer. Dr. Edney says one of his main priorities is reducing health disparities, many of which are the worst in the nation.
Dr. Edney says “I just refuse to accept the fact that it’s our fate to be the unhealthiest population in the nation. I refuse to believe that our teenagers and college-age students must continue to die at an escalating rate of opioid overdoses. The most egregious of all of it is I refuse to believe that our mothers and babies are just fated to continue to die at the highest rate in the nation.”
One of the ways Dr. Edney says the state can address high maternal and infant mortality rates is by extending post-partum Medicaid benefits. The Senate passed a bipartisan bill this year to do just that, but the measure was not taken up in the House. Dr. Edney says these benefits can save lives.
“We can’t have a woman with pregnancy-induced hypertension on four medications barely controlled lose her Medicaid at the second month, and then have no access to care, have no access to medication. That just doesn’t make any sense to me as a physician,” says Dr. Edney. “I think there are answers to these that we can look at, but we do have to recognize that this problem is real.”
Dr. Edney says the state can also begin to address infant mortality by using community outreach methods learned throughout the pandemic.
