New comparative healthcare publication available

STARKVILLE — Information about healthcare access in the state’s 82 counties now is available through an annual publication of a Mississippi State University research center.

“Monitoring Mississippi 2011: Assessing Our Health Workforce” is published by the Northeast Mississippi Area Health Education Center’s research arm, the Mississippi Center for Health Workforce. (For online orders, visit nemsahec.msstate.edu/book.php.)

The health workforce center is located at the university’s nationally recognized Social Science Research Center.

Health workforce center director Lynne Cossman, an MSU sociology professor, said the annual assessment compares data of different counties in such categories as physician-patient ratios, population demographics, insurance rates and admissions to hospitals, among other areas.

Cossman described the publication as a reference guide for healthcare planners, providers and others associated with this field in the Magnolia State. This is the second consecutive year the center has compiled the information for publication, she added.