Health issues also affect Rio Grande Valley economy

The serious threat of diabetes in the Rio Grande Valley could be harming more than just people’s health, officials say.

With studies that show diabetes affects 31 percent of the adult population in Brownsville, the economy is sure to suffer, said Joseph McCormick, the regional dean at the Brownsville Regional Campus for the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston’s School of Public Health and vice president for South Texas Programs at the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio.

“Imagine how many people, thousands of those, each year are going to go to an emergency department with some complications of diabetes,” McCormick said. “Often it’s very late in the disease.”

In the United States, the cost associated with diabetes in 2007 was $174 billion, said Hasanat Alamgir, an associate professor at the UT School of Public Health, an expert in epidemiology and health economics. Of that amount, $116 billion goes directly toward medical expenditures, he said. For the same year, the estimated medical and indirect costs associated with diabetes for the Rio Grande Valley was $1.5 billion, according to the Brownsville Comprehensive Plan, which guides the development and future of the city. Read More