ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, December 5, 1995 TAG: 9512050079
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press
Contrary to their images, some of the biggest cities have fared better than the rest of the country in recent years in terms of the growth of crime, child poverty and infectious diseases, according to a new catalog of urban life.
An organization of public hospitals compiled a statistical portrait of life in the nation's 100 largest cities, which are home to 51 million Americans, or one in five. It found signs of progress in the 25 largest cities.
``Our research shows that some of the larger cities, still clearly facing uphill challenges, are actually improving at greater rates than the smaller ones,'' said Dennis Andrulis, president of the National Public Health and Hospital Institute.
The chart book on ``Urban Social Health'' was compiled from statistics gathered by the Census Bureau, the FBI, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the American Hospital Association.
The report, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, was an attempt to paint a larger picture of the problems confronting big city hospitals, which traditionally serve large numbers of the poor.
It indicates that in the 1980s, child poverty grew faster nationally than in the largest 25 cities. So did violent crime and the percentage of households headed by single women.
From 1990 to 1993, tuberculosis rates fell 38 percent in the 25 biggest cities while increasing 32 percent nationally. AIDS cases grew 135 percent in these cities, but 141 percent in the entire United States.
Some big cities ``are clearly doing something right after lengthy periods of decline,'' Andrulis said.
The urban public hospitals saw their Medicaid caseloads grow from 24 percent of their total in 1980 to 44 percent in 1993, while their Medicare cases slumped from 24 percent to 19 percent.
Andrulis criticized Republican plans to convert Medicaid into lump sum payments to the states, saying, ``The diversity of our major cities will make it nearly impossible to address social and health concerns with just one block grant-based funding formula.''
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