The state of Mississippi is named after the Mississippi River. Mississippi covers 46,907 square miles, with a 2006 estimated population of 2,910,540 people – with 1,648,330 people living in rural Mississippi (USDA-ERS). Jackson is the state capital. The state’s largest cities are Jackson, Gulfport, and Biloxi. According to the 2005 Census, 61.2% of the state’s population is white, 36.9% is Black/African-American, and 1.7% is of Hispanic/Latino origin.
There are 100 hospitals in Mississippi, 72 of
which are located in rural areas (North Carolina Rural Health Research
and Policy Analysis Center, 2007). The state has
28 hospitals currently identified by the Flex Monitoring Team as
Critical Access Hospitals. There are 137 Rural Health Clinics in
Mississippi, and 19 Federally Qualified Health Centers provide
services at 144 sites in the state (Kaiser, 2005). Seventeen percent
of Mississippi residents lack any health insurance (Kaiser, 2004-2005).
According to the Economic Research Service, the average per-capita income for all Mississippi residents in 2005 was $25,051, although rural per-capita income lagged at $22,983. Estimates from 2004 indicate a poverty rate of 21.4% exists in rural Mississippi, compared to 19.3% in urban areas of the state. Data from 2000 finds that 31.7% of the rural population has not completed high school, while 21.0% of the urban population lacks a high school diploma. The unemployment rate in rural Mississippi is 7.1%, while in urban Mississippi, it is 6.8% (USDA-ERS, 2006).
For a national comparison, please see an overview of the United States.
Data Sources:
U.S. Census Bureau:
State & County QuickFacts
USDA
Economic Research Service: State Fact Sheets
North
Carolina Rural Health Research and Policy Analysis Center
Kaiser
Family Foundation State Health Facts
Flex Monitoring Team: Critical Access Hospital List
Organizations
Community Resource Group (CRG)
Nonprofit/Foundation
Works in rural areas to expand the opportunities for families to build assets, improve their lives, and strengthen their communities.
HUD Community Development Block Grants: Mississippi
Federal government
Contact information for the State CDBG program. Provides funding for community development projects.
Mid-South Delta Initiative (MSDI)
Nonprofit/Foundation
The Mid South Delta Initiative (MSDI) is a long-term economic, community and leadership development effort focused on 55 contiguous counties and parishes along the Mississippi River in rural Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi.
Mississippi Department of Health
State government
Works to improve the health of Mississippi residents.
Mississippi Department of Human Services
State government
Mission is to provide services for people in need by optimizing all available resources to sustain the family unit and to encourage traditional family values thereby promoting self-sufficiency and personal responsibility for all Mississippians.
Mississippi Division of Child Support Enforcement
State government
To provide child support services to ensure that children receive financial and emotional support from both parents and empower families to become self-sufficient.
Mississippi Hospital Association (MHA)
State/regional organization
A statewide trade organization dedicated to effectively serving the health care needs of Mississippi, serving those who serve the state's hospitals and their employees.
Mississippi Office of Rural Health
State government
Serves to understand and improve rural health conditions within Mississippi through collecting and evaluating data, providing technical assistance, and updating a rural health care information clearinghouse. A division of the Mississippi State Department of Health.
Mississippi Primary Health Care Association (MPHCA)
State/regional organization
Represents the interests of its members in national, regional and statewide efforts to improve access to health care for the medically underserved.
Mississippi Rural Health Association
State/regional organization
Works to improve the health of rural Mississippians through forums, networking, and communication. A division of the Mississippi State Department of Health.
National Network of Libraries of Medicine, Southeastern/Atlantic Region (NN/LM-SE/A)
State/regional organization
Works to improve access to health information for health care providers, librarians and the public in Alabama, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Tennessee, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Virginia and West Virginia.
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development: Mississippi
Federal government
Works to increase homeownership, support community development and increase access to affordable housing. The HUD state office provides information about HUD housing programs and local contacts for the state.
USDA Rural Development Mississippi State Office
Federal government
Committed to helping improve the economy and quality of life in all of rural America. The Rural Development State Office provides information about Rural Development programs and applications for financial assistance.
Volunteers of America Southeast (VOASE)
Nonprofit/Foundation
Provides programs and opportunities for individual and community involvement, including a faith-based and community resource center. Works to serve people along the Alabama-Mississippi Gulf Coast who are hungry, homeless, and fighting for survival since Hurricane Katrina. Offers programs for children, chronic mental illness, hard of hearing, community enhancement, elderly, housing, and substance abuse.
Tools
ERS State Fact Sheet: Mississippi
Web site
Statistics on population, educational attainment, employment, income, farm characteristics, and farm financial indicators for the state.
Mississippi QuickFacts
Web site
Basic demographic and economic statistics for the state, with links to county-level data.
Mississippi AgrAbility Project
Web site
The Mississippi AgrAbility Project partners are the Mississippi State University Extension Service, the T.K. Martin Center for Technology and Disability, Methodist Rehabilitation Center, the Mississippi Department of Rehabilitation Services and the Alcorn State University Extension Program.
Mississippi Community Level Information on Kids (CLIKS)
Web site
Provides data on child well-being for the state.
Mississippi Health Centers Data
Web site
Provides access to information on Federally Qualified Health Centers for the state. Includes a map of FQHC locations, as well as information on the populations served by health centers, services provided, staff, patient visits, costs of care, and use of electronic health information.
Mississippi Health Workforce: Highlights from the Health Workforce Profile
Web site
Highlights compile 2000 data on levels of employment, projected growth and key environmental factors that affect demand for health care. Details for medicine, nursing, dentistry, pharmacy, mental health and aides.
Mississippi State Health Facts
Database
The latest state-level data on demographics, health, and health policy, including health coverage, access, financing, and state legislation. Individual state profiles and 50-state comparisons.
Mississippi State Medicaid Profile
Web site
Provides data on Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) for the state.
National Healthcare Quality Report State Snapshot: Mississippi
Web site
Health care quality report for the state, based on the National Healthcare Quality Report.
State Profiles- Mississippi: Health Information Technology (HIT)
Web site
Profiles the state’s health information technology (HIT) issues. Contains sections on demographics, HIT legislation, telemedicine, Health Information Exchanges (HIE) & Regional Health Information Organizations (RHIO), grant funded HIT projects, and HIT survey information.
See also: Resources for All States: Tools Funding
Weyerhaeuser Company Foundation
Provides grants in communities where the company has operations.
Inactive Funding
Inactive Funding Opportunities -
Lists additional funding programs for this state that are not currently accepting applications. Programs that are inactive may be offered again in the future.
Documents, Reports and Other Publications
Community Based Framework for Understanding Problems and Exploring Alternatives: Connecting Underemployment, Poverty and Access to Health Care in the Mississippi Delta
Author(s): John J. Green, Albert B. Nylander
Sponsoring organization: RUPRI Rural Policy Research Center
Discusses community-based research as a framework for better understanding views of poverty and exploring alternative intervention programs that are innovative and diverse. Includes examples of regional assets, barriers, social and health issues identified in the Mississippi Delta region using this research approach.
Date: 02 / 2006
Demographic and Economic Profile: Mississippi
Author(s): Kathleen K. Miller
Sponsoring organization: Rural Policy Research Institute
Discusses demographic and economic data including population, race, education, age, poverty, income, and more. Includes maps and graphics.
Date: 05 / 2006
Indicators of Access to Early Childhood Services in the Mississippi Delta
Author(s): Elizabeth F. Shores, Erin Barbaro, Michael C. Barbaro, Michelle Flenner, Lynn Bell
Sponsoring organization: National Center for Rural Early Childhood Learning Initiatives
Provides maps and data about access to child care in the Delta Counties of Mississippi.
Date: 05 / 2007
Small Business Profile: Mississippi
Sponsoring organization: U.S. Small Business Administration
Profile of the state's economy, covering the number of firms, industry composition, small business income, banking, women and minority business ownership, and employment.
Date: 2006
State Profiles - Mississippi: Reforming the Health Care System
Sponsoring organization: AARP Public Policy Institute
Detailed profile of the state's health care system. Covers demographics, expenditures and financing, health status, utilization and quality of services, health care providers, Medicare, Medicaid, health insurance coverage, and key trends.
Date: 12 / 2005
See also: Resources for All States: Documents Journals
Mississippi - Crossroads
Quarterly newsletter, combining the news of both the Mississippi Rural Health Association Mississippi State Office of Rural Health.
Success Stories
Claiborne County Rural Health Care Services Outreach project
The Claiborne County Rural Health Care Services Outreach project will operate three school-based health clinics to provide primary health care, prevention services, and health education on topics such as diet, nutrition, exercise, high-risk behavior prevention, and tobacco use prevention to students in grades K-12 in the Claiborne County Public School District.
Community Medical Center of Greene County
The purpose of the program was to increase access to primary care, laboratory, and radiology services for medically underserved individuals and families in Greene County, MS.
Delta Community Partners in Care
Delta Community Partners in Care (DCPIC) is a coalition of partners serving a rural area in the Mississippi Delta region of northwest Mississippi.
Delta Rural Health Network of Mississippi, Inc.
In 1996, the Delta Rural Health Network established a service area for 12 Mississippi counties that are most impoverished, in comparison to the U.S., and lacked healthcare providers.
Humphreys County Memorial Hospital Rural Health Outreach Program
The project's main goals were to increase the numbers of K - 12 students who are covered by health insurance, who use the health care services provided, and who follow up on recommended health care; to increase transportation to primary and specialty health providers; and to decrease the number of families of K - 12 students who are noncompliant in regard to their children's health needs.
Maternal Infant Health Outreach Worker Program
The Vanderbilt Center for Health Services’ Maternal Infant Health Outreach Worker (MIHOW) program provides early intervention services to low income families in Nashville as well as other urban and rural areas in Appalachia and the Mississippi delta, including Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, and West Virginia.
Project Prevention
Project Prevention was designed to reduce teen pregnancies in three of Mississippi's neediest counties - Clay, Lowndes, and Noxubee counties.
TelEmergency
In response to a lack of emergency care and physicians in many rural areas of Mississippi, the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMC) has developed and directs the operation of a rural health telemedicine initiative called TelEmergency. Rural hospitals have contracted with UMC to allow the Emergency Medicine specialist backup for the nurse practitioners who completed the program and were hired by the local facility. When these nurse practitioners staff the rural Emergency Department, they communicate with Emergency Medicine physicians at UMC via T-1 lines and a sophisticated telemedicine setup.
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