The economic atmosphere that cultivated Scott County’s disturbing HIV outbreak deserves its share attention from state officials. That action should occur with an urgency close to that applied to the epidemic itself.
Scott County lies in southeastern Indiana, in a rural setting near the Ohio River valley. With a population of 24,000 located in the Hoosier countryside, that place would seem to be an unlikely site to experience more than 80 new cases of human immunodeficiency virus — the virus which causes AIDS — to race through its borders. In most cases, drug abusers contracted HIV by sharing contaminated needles for illegal injections of Opana, a prescription painkiller, but health officials say the virus is also spreading through sexual contact.
The situation prompted Gov. Mike Pence to allow a temporary, clean-needle exchange program, breaking his long-standing opposition to such practices. It drove state Rep. Ed Clere, a New Albany Republican, to admirably propose emergency legislation to allow Indiana health officials to authorize needle exchanges in other high-risk communities. It passed a House committee last week. (Pence vows to veto such a bill.) The concern of the governor and legislators obviously reached a peak. “This is all hands on deck,” as Pence put it.
A physician who operates the only clinic in the Scott County town of Austin, where the HIV scourge has hit hardest, told NBC News last week that poverty is driving the high drug addiction rate there. “My clinic serves the poorest people in Indiana, potentially in the country,” Dr. William Cooke told the network.
Just as the governor said of the HIV outbreak, “This is not a Scott County problem; this is an Indiana problem,” the same is true of the economic predicament. Poverty can be found throughout the Hoosier state, especially beyond Indianapolis and its affluent rim counties. In Scott County, 18.5 percent of its residents live at or below the poverty line. The state poverty rate of 15.9 percent exceeds the national mark of 14.5, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Wabash Valley residents thinking Scott County and its troubles are far removed from this community should understand that Vigo County’s poverty rate stands at 20.3 percent, nearly 2 points above Scott’s. Consider what the Austin doctor said about the prevalence of the poor there. That same outbreak could happen here.
Poverty, specifically among children, is one of the criteria used in the “County Health Rankings” compiled annually by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin. That project released its 2015 figures last week, and in terms of health factors — personal behaviors, clinical care, social and economic issues, and the physical environment — Scott County ranked 90th out of Indiana’s 92 counties. Sullivan County lurked just two notches higher at 88th, closely followed by Vermillion 80th, Parke 79th and Vigo 74th. Poverty hits single-parent households especially hard, and 36 percent of Scott County kids live in that situation. In Vigo County, it’s 39 percent, and 38 in Vermillion.
In their current session, Indiana legislators have given too little attention to boosting Hoosier incomes and, thus, helping dilute the desperate economic environment that leads to drug abuse and other social scourges. Poverty and the low-wage-job economy warrant an all-hands-on-deck response, too.