What The Health? Lose The Mesa City Officials Media Hype > Are YOU Better Off Now?

Ooops!
There your MesaZona blogger goes again!
That's right on-the-road to the mission of this hyper-local news source to  tell you to STAY WOKE and keep you informed - it's people not leaders that can make this City great. Recent studies and data featured here in posts might make you uncomfortable . . . here's just one more  
CityHealth, an initiative of the de Beaumont Foundation and Kaiser Permanente, offers a close look at whether the nation’s 40 largest cities have nine key policies in place that experts say help residents lead healthier lives and make communities thrive. CityHealth awarded each city a gold, silver, bronze, or no medal, according to their performance in the assessment. The group also awarded nine policy-specific medals to each city, according to the quality and strength of the laws in place, which address affordable housing, safe streets, and food safety, among other issues.
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Blogger Note: CityHealth will update its ratings again next year.
For more details on how each of the 40 cities stack up, go to www.cityhealth.org.
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The report is designed to show which cities are leading the way on policies shown to improve people’s health and quality of life. CityHealth found in just one year, cities earned a total of 24 new medals for implementing proven policies to better the lives of the people who live, play, learn, and work in their jurisdictions. These advances meant that 10 cities—one quarter of the nation’s 40 largest cities —improved their overall medal status. . .
We encourage all cities to show their commitment to building a healthier community that truly thrives, by adopting this set of proven policies. Every unearned gold medal represents an opportunity to take action and to improve people’s quality of life. . . " 
Affordable Housing
Affordable housing promotes diverse, inclusive neighborhoods and positive mental health, reduces crowding and exposure to environmental hazards, and frees up household resources to pay for health care and healthy food
Complete Streets
Complete streets policies safely combine all forms of transportation, such as walking, biking, driving or taking the bus. These policies can expand economic growth, improve individuals’ health, and save lives. 
Food Safety
Policies that require food establishments to publicly post food safety inspection grades empower consumers, promote transparency, and reduce foodborne illness
No Overall Medal – Fifteen Cities
Columbus, OH
Dallas, TX
Detroit, MI
El Paso, TX
Fort Worth, TX
Indianapolis, IN
Jacksonville, FL
Las Vegas, NV
Memphis, TN*
Mesa, AZ
Nashville, TN*
Oklahoma City, OK
Phoenix, AZ
Tucson, AZ
Virginia Beach, VA*
(* These cities increased their overall medal status since last year)

CityHealth, an initiative of the de Beaumont Foundation and Kaiser Permanente, provides leaders with a package of evidence-based policy solutions that will help millions of people live longer, better lives in vibrant, prosperous communities.
CityHealth will regularly evaluate cities on the number and strength of their policies. http://www.cityhealth.org/
The de Beaumont Foundation is dedicated to improving the capacity and performance of the U.S. public health system, and equipping public health agencies to thrive in a transforming health landscape. In so doing, we aspire to improve the health of the populations of the communities they serve across the U.S. http://www.debeaumont.org/
Kaiser Permanente is committed to helping shape the future of health care. We are recognized as one of America’s leading health care providers and not-for-profit health plans. Founded in 1945, Kaiser Permanente has a mission to provide high-quality, affordable health care services and to improve the health of our members and the communities we serve. We currently serve more than 12.2 million members in eight states and the District of Columbia. Care for members and patients is focused on their total health and guided by their personal Permanente Medical Group physicians, specialists and team of caregivers. Our expert and caring medical teams are empowered and supported by industry-leading technology advances and tools for health promotion, disease prevention, state-of-the-art care delivery and world-class chronic disease management. Kaiser Permanente is dedicated to care innovations, clinical research, health education and the support of community health. For more information, go to: kp.org/share.
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Dying in Arizona may cost less than other states

Nick Ciletti

10:46 PM, May 24, 2018 9:21 AM, May 26, 2018 

LINK > https://www.kgun9.com/news/dying-in-arizona-may-cost-less-than-other-states 

PHOENIX - Death and taxes, both facts of life. And neither one is talked about enough. But it turns out, passing away in Arizona may actually cost less than in other states. 
That's most likely because an overwhelming majority of people in Arizona decide to get cremated instead of opting for a traditional burial. 
According to the Arizona Board of Funeral Directors and Embalmers, about 70% of people who died were cremated in 2017. That number has held steady since 2015. 
Judith Stapley with the board says cost is part of it, but not the only factor. 
"We have so many snowbirds and people that want to go to their home states, wherever they're from originally, and be buried or take cremations back there," Stapley explains. 
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JUST THE FACTS PLEASE:
Exercise Program Fails to Ease Dementia

26 May 2018

A yearlong program of brisk exercise in people with mild to moderate dementia left participants more physically fit, but no better off in terms of mental functioning, daily living, or quality of life. In fact, the intensive exercise program may have slightly worsened their cognition. The results of the randomized trial, led by Sallie Lamb of the University of Oxford, appeared May 16 in The BMJ.

• The power of exercise to slow established cognitive decline is unclear.
• Researchers enrolled 494 people with dementia to a randomized trial of moderate to intense exercise for one year.
• They became physically fitter, but their cognition worsened.

Researchers know that staying fit in midlife lowers dementia risk (Mar 2018 news), but they don’t know whether boosting fitness in later life improves cognition and function in people with established dementia. Systematic reviews of previous, mostly small and heterogeneous trials yield conflicting results (Forbes et al., 2015; Groot et al., 2016).
. . . Most people successfully followed the program—two-thirds attended most of their scheduled sessions and 85 percent reported continuing the program at home. The goal was to boost blood flow and muscle mass, in hopes that better vascular and metabolic function would pay off in better brain health.

Fitness Test: In a randomized trial of exercise in people with dementia, scores on the ADAS-Cog after 12 months worsened compared to usual care. [Courtesy of Lamb et al., 2018.]
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MORE INFORMATION/Details > https://www.alzforum.org/news/research-news/exercise-program-fails-ease-dementia