Nevada Health Study (Reno: incomes, health care, homes)

[Jose Montara]

A new study has found that longtime Nevada residents are more likely to have firearms in the homes and less satisfied with their overall health than newcomers.
Longtime Nevada women residents were more likely to get mammograms, but also more likely to be obese than newcomers. For men, longtime residents were more likely to never have had a prostate exam.
The study was conducted by Wei Yang, a professor and the director of the Nevada Center for Health Statistics and Informatics at the University of Nevada, Reno.
It was the first study ever to compare the health behaviors of longtime Nevadans to those of new residents.
The analysis looked at newcomers who had lived in the state for less than a year and residents who are Nevada natives as well as those who have lived here for one to five years, five to 10 years and more than 10 years.
A total of 8,663 people participated in the study.
Yang presented his findings Friday at the Nevada Public Health Association’s annual conference in Reno, said Jill Boudreaux-Stockton, communications director of UNR’s College of Health and Human Sciences
“For the past two decades Nevada has been the fastest-growing state in the nation,” Yang said. “The demographic structure and health behaviors of newcomers could significantly impact Nevada’s public health configuration, which relates to health planning, prevention, health education and health care policies.”
The study found that Nevada’s newcomers primarily come from California, are younger, have lower incomes, are less Caucasian in ethnicity and are significantly changing the demographic structure of the state.
Yang analyzed several categories of data including: preventative behaviors and policy, personal behavior choices, health status and women’s health and men’s health.
Findings revealed long-term residents living in Nevada for more than 10 years were 6.8 times more likely to report living in a home with a firearm compared to newcomers. Newcomers were 1.7 times more likely to report never being tested for HIV when compared to longer term residents.
He found that residents living in Nevada longer than one year were likely to report the same personal behavior choices when compared to newcomers. A marginal difference between short-time residents and newcomers is that newcomers have more leisure time or physical activity than residents living in Nevada longer than one year, but are more likely to engage in heavy drinking.
Residents who had lived in Nevada for more than one year were two times more likely to report only fair or poor health when compared to newcomers. Newcomers, however, were about two times more likely to be diabetic than residents living in Nevada for more than one year.
Long-term women residents were about 2.4 times less likely to report never having a mammogram when compared to newcomers. Long-term residents that have lived in Nevada for five to 10 years were 2.2 times more likely to be obese when compared to newcomer women.
Findings revealed men living in the state between five and 10 years were about five times less likely to report having prostate cancer as compared to newcomers. Additionally, men living in the state for more than 10 years were 3.2 times more likely to report never having a digital rectal exam as compared to newcomer men.

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[imbobbbb]

well since the newcomers are mostly younger californians it would make sense that they would be skinnier,more active,less likely to own guns,etc......they will grow into the rest of it