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Cancer, heart disease, COPD top three causes of death in Nebraska

The dean of UNMC’s College of Public Health says the state of Nebraska has work to do to improve health and well-being.

Nebraska ranks 10th in the nation in overall health. But the state is 35th ­in screening for colorectal cancer, and near the bottom when it comes to health disparities.

Dr. Ali Khan says the disparities are disturbing when you look at data from two zip codes in Omaha. One is zip code 68135, in the Millard area. There, the life expectancy is almost 83 years. 20 miles away, in north Omaha’s 68111 zip code, the life expectancy is 70.6 years---a difference of almost 13 years.

Dr. Khan says more than 30 percent of Douglas County’s black population and 25 percent of the county’s Hispanic population live in poverty. That compares to seven percent of the county’s white residents.

Cancer, heart disease, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or COPD are the three leading causes of death in Nebraska. Khan says making Nebraska the healthiest state in the nation means, in part, shifting to a health care system focused on wellness and prevention.

“It’s having health systems look outside the confines of their clinic, their hospital, their practice, to say it really does matter to us that if I have somebody with COPD who keeps coming in to the hospital with exacerbations during the summer, maybe somebody needs to go out to his home or her home and see whether or not they have an air conditioner, or whatever that factor may be.”

Dr. Khan says Nebraska should expand Medicaid, and the health of the state’s population should be part of the discussion when new policies are introduced. He says Nebraska also needs more primary care physicians.

Nebraska ranks 16th in the nation for deaths from cancer, and 17th for deaths from heart disease.

Dr. Khan spoke Thursday at the Case Management Society of America conference in Omaha.