Iranian-style heath care in Mississippi

An organization called HealthConnect in Mississippi has adopted an Iranian health care model as a way to address a health care crisis. In the early 1980's, Iran created 17,000 “health houses” to care for the rural poor. The houses are within walking distance. If people need more complex care, they go to a regional center or to a hospital. 

Mississippi has some of the worst health statistics in the country: uncontrolled diabetes, hypertension, stroke, heart disease, asthma, and infant mortality—diseases born primarily of poverty, obesity, and lack of access to healthful food. Because of a shortage of doctors as well as primary and preventive care, sick people in rural Mississippi go to the emergency room for care. HealthConnect tries to prevent such visits by providing both at-home health services as well as primary care at nearby clinics, using Iran’s system as a model. In Mississippi, many rural people now have access to care. 

But clinics and in-home care don’t address the food problem, which may be the underlying cause of the crisis. In parts of rural Mississippi, an adequate grocery store might be 30 miles away, and the local gas station is the only convenient place to buy food. I don’t have the data at hand, but I’m pretty sure that in the past, many of the rural folks in Mississippi grew their own food. People lived into their nineties. Now, the life expectancy for a black man is lower than it was in the ‘60s.

The reason I’m pretty sure that people from the rural south used to grow their own food is that, in the early 80s, I was the director of the urban gardening program in Detroit. Among other things, we plowed vacant lots and provided seeds.

Me on the left.

Most of the people who took advantage of these resources were experienced gardeners—Detroiters who were part of the Great Migration (1916-1970). One time I had a load of elephant manure from the Detroit Zoo dropped onto a vacant lot. The idea was to plow it into the lot. But within minutes, people—mostly elderly—were coming with buckets and wagons to haul the manure home to their own gardens. Those folks knew how to grow food!

It ain’t easy.

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