Who Am I? What Can Scioto Demographics Reveal?

“Cogito, ergo sum” translated as “I think, therefore I am.”

– René Descartes (1596-1650) French philosopher, from his writing in Principles of Philosophy (1644)

Descartes's statement – known as the “cogito” – became a fundamental element of Western philosophy, as it purported to provide a certain foundation for knowledge in the face of radical doubt. While other knowledge could be a figment of imagination, deception, or mistake, Descartes asserted that the very act of doubting one's own existence served—at minimum—as proof of the reality of one's own mind; there must be a thinking entity—in this case the self—for there to be a thought. 

One common critique of the dictum is that it presupposes that there is an "I" which must be doing the thinking. According to this line of criticism, the most that Descartes was entitled to say was that "thinking is occurring,” not that "I am thinking.”

Well, thinking is occurring. I am. (At least I think I am.) And, I am thinking about my own human existence. 

Have you ever considered who you are? I'm sure you have. I know I often consider this question at my age. It seems reflection is a natural part of old age. My environment certainly holds keys to the product I have become over the years. Maybe the present environment of my home county can provide me some answers. 

I am a 70-year-old, lifelong resident of Scioto County. Born in Portsmouth in 1951, I understand the culture and social environment of this rural Appalachian community well enough to feel confident in my assessment. 

What can demographics show me about myself? I decided to give statistics a go and develop a profile of myself related to the county in which I live. Maybe some of this investigation will reveal insight into your particular Scioto County status, too. Anyway, I hope you find this entry entertaining.

Many thanks to U.S. Census “Quick Facts” population estimates from July 1, 2019, from which much information was derived.

Who Am I?

I am in the 65 or older age category, of which are 18.6% of my fellow Scioto citizens. The median age here is approximately 39 years. That means that over 80% of the folks around me are younger than I am and that over half of them are 30 years my junior. It's no wonder I feel old. Seniors in Scioto are in a great minority.

Speaking of minorities, I am not in that small racial status by any stretch of the imagination. I am one of the 94.4% of the population in Scioto County that is White. In fact, in 2018, there were 35.1 times more White (Non-Hispanic) residents (71.3k people) in Scioto County, OH than any other race or ethnicity. We have been and continue to be a county of WASPs – White, Anglo-Saxon Protestants with little racial diversity.

67.6% of residents in my county live in owner-occupied housing. The home in Portsmouth I own would not fetch the median value of an owner-occupied home here – $97,800. After all, I purchased the $24,000 property in the mid-70s. But I'm very close to the “persons per household” figure of 2.43 since my wife and I live in an “empty nest” house where once our four children resided. We're only a half a kid away from being average.

By Scioto standards, I have recent technology. I am one of the 82% of Scioto households with a computer and 73.9% of households with broadband internet subscription. I, personally, don't own a smartphone, but my wife and nearly everyone else I know do. 

I am, to a great degree, in an educational minority here. 15.7% of people in the county have attained a bachelor's degree of higher. And, 6.6% have a graduate degree. I have both with those two degrees issued by Ohio University. As a high school teacher, those university qualifications were necessary for my employment. 

That information leads to my income. I am near average here as Ohio has a median household income of $41,330. Speaking of income, it is revealing to note here are especially a lot of people living in Portsmouth who work in food service (12.40%), healthcare (10.51%), and office and administrative support (9.71%).

We all know the unemployment rate in Scioto has been historically high. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a 5.9% figure for the county as of April 2021. That is actually pretty good – even in the pre-COVID days of 2017 rates of 7-8% were recorded. The national rate is currently 6.1%. 

Right now “Help Needed” signs are springing up everywhere here – especially in chain and local restaurants. The total in the Scioto civilian labor force is 49.4% … and, perhaps, growing since the post of these 2019 U.S. Census “Quick Facts” estimates.

I am not, but many in the county are continuing to live in poverty. 

Estimates from the Census Bureau’s five-year American Community Survey, taken from 2014 through 2018 and released in mid-December 2020 are grim. Sadly, 23.6% of the people here are in poverty with places like New Boston at 39,6% and Lucasville at 36.9%. And that includes a child poverty rate of 31.5% (ranked 4th worse of 88 counties in Ohio).

These figures leave me at a loss for words and make me realize how fortunate our family is. They also make me realize the value of funded programs like food support and childcare. In 2011, rate of dependency on income supports was 36.1% (3^rd worse of 88 Ohio counties). According to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, in 2013, 32.2% of the Scioto population was on food support. (26,818 people). In that same year, 942 county children were benefiting from publicly funded childcare. 

Thank God for government support including Free and Reduced Lunch plus amazing groups like Community Action, the Freestore Foodbank, and the Scioto County Homeless Shelter

The crime rate in the county is actually estimated to be 0.58% lower than the national average. That means for every 1,000 residents, there are 3.84 daily crimes that occur in Scioto County. I am glad I live in a good neighborhood in Portsmouth where we don't have daily worries about being a victim of crime. We have had a couple instances of drug activity on the street during the opioid crisis, but very few other problems. We do take security precautions and practice neighborhood watch. Locked doors and security cameras are paramount.

I believe the biggest problems I and others here in Scioto County face are health-related. Scioto County ranked 88 out of 88 Ohio counties in terms of overall health in the 2020 County Health Rankings & Roadmaps program, a study conducted by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute.

Using measures such as quality of life, social and economic factors, and health behaviors, including smoking and obesity, the county received marks consistently worse than Ohio’s averages.

Perhaps most striking was the study’s measure of premature death. Defined as years of potential life lost before the age of 75 per 100,000, Scioto County lost 13,100 years between 2016 and 2018. Also tied with Pike County, the rate is in stark contrast to Delaware County whose 4,100 years lost was the fewest in the state.

The county has been near the bottom of the results each year since 2012, ranking last in 2013 and 2014. Its best rating, 82nd, came in 2018. Many factors staying the same, Portsmouth City Health Department Interim Director Belinda Leslie believed the county’s ranking changed due to changes in other counties.

Low-points for the county addressed in the study – mental health, obesity and physical inactivity – already reached Portsmouth City Health Department’s attention after first participating with the Community Health Needs Assessment in 2015. 

Conclusions

What have these facts and statistics shown me about myself? For starters, I'm an old guy in the minority of seniors. The daily obituaries can attest to this – they are a constant reminder of my mortality, and I find myself attending far too many services for friends and relatives these days. 

As a homeowner in a predominantly White community, I have had few opportunities to experience diversity; however, my immediate family is racially diverse, and we immensely enjoy celebrating that reality. However, doing so is not without concerns in a place where only 2.7% of the 75,314 population is Black or African American and overwhelmingly live in the town of Portsmouth. Often, I worry about our minority kin and the problems they face because of the color of their skin.

With college degrees in English and Secondary Education, I don't fit the common mold of a Scioto man. Still, I have found both my profession as an English/Writing teacher and my sex as a male very conducive to finding a niche in employment and beneficial to the advancement of my inclusion in groups and pursuits of interest. This education has not led to great riches, but rather it has made possible involvement with a wonderful group of friends. And, being a male Appalachian English teacher has been a distinction that allows me to sound like a hillbilly but surprisingly communicate with style and precision – I believe this surprises some doubters and helps eliminate stereotypes of my own particular environment. 

The poverty and poor health of my fellow county residents is on constant display here, and those crippling detriments contribute to a general depression of the people. The mental disease of depression has had a major impact in my life, and I wonder if some of the disability I have faced is directly related to the environment. 

We residents become so accustomed to the stagnant “feel” of our area that we distrust promises of progress. That includes doubting positive change in the quality of jobs and better healthcare. In essence, we often “laugh at ourselves to avoid crying,” yet we remain acutely aware of the stigmas and stereotypes most apply to our poor, even pitiful, condition. 

We must conquer drug abuse and the lack of basic human needs to elevate our Scioto existence. Pill mills – ten facilities handing out Oxy's like candy – once blighted the county. Heroin – the cheap alternative for the addicted – soon followed. Every aspect of a good life here took a hit with the opioid epidemic. Scioto County became ground zero for devastation brought on by the drug trade. Now we remain “sick” and “sick of it” as rehab facilities and mental health centers bulge with patients trying to cope and hoping to get well. 

Anyone familiar with the effect of these drugs understands the tremendous toll addiction takes on families. So many in our county suffer from the financial, criminal, and health problems attributed to addiction. Codependency, the psychological construct involving an unhealthy relationship that people share with those closest to them, involve families of substance abuse but also includes other types of dysfunctional relationships: Codependents, busy taking care of others, forget to take care of themselves, resulting in a disturbance of identity development.

I live in a county full of codependency. Some of the things that have been found to correlate with codependency include … 

• Low self-esteem;

• Low levels of narcissism;

• Familial dysfunction;

• Depression;

• Anxiety;

• Stress;

• Low emotional expressivity.
  

A wide monetary gap exists between residents here. Affluent residents find the low cost of living very beneficial while the needy struggle to survive, as many of them depend upon public assistance. Appalachians are historically proud, independent people. Therein lies another division – hard-working residents often resent those who receive welfare and associate them with negative traits like being lazy and irresponsible. 

Approximately 7,300 people (according to 2012-2018 U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey stats) are reported to be on public assistance in Scioto. This includes various forms of public welfare such as Supplemental Security Income (SSI), cash public assistance income, or Food Stamps/SNAP.

It is important to note that most benefit programs require recipients to work in order to collect. Take Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), for example. Single parents receiving this grant must work at least 30 hours per week in order to be eligible, and two-parent families must work between 35 and 50 hours a week.

The fact is, blue-collar wages are simply not high enough to support workers in today’s economy. The wages paid by many large employers (including giants like Wal-Mart) are so low that their full-time employees are eligible for welfare. Many of these businesses don't let employees work 40-hour weeks because then the workers would be eligible for health care and other benefits. It is time to give service workers and others a paycheck that allows them a decent living, a home, and, above all, a happy, secure life. 

The truth about food stamps? Half of all food stamp recipients are children. According to the Coalition on Human Needs, more than 82% of all food stamp money goes to households that include children, elderly people, or people with disabilities. These are people who legally or physically cannot work and live at the mercy of the system.

Many poor Scioto residents feel as if they are simply “running in place” with the current welfare system: An increase in income can result in a corresponding reduction in benefits. Rather than climbing a ladder to success with each promotion, they remain on a treadmill. 

And, what can you do with such little money to improve your station in life? So many still can’t get a quality education, affordable child care to offset low-wage labor, or reliable transportation. But more than anything else, health problems are one of the most pervasive causes, and results, of poverty.

A study released in 2017 in the journal Health Affairs found disparities widening sharply between Appalachia and the rest of the country, driven by higher rates of infant mortality, smoking, obesity and early deaths from motor vehicle accidents and drug overdoses. 

“Although life expectancy increased everywhere in the United States between 1990 and 2013, less rapid declines in mortality and slower gains in life expectancy among people in Appalachia have led to a widening health gap,” the study said.

The study focused on the 428 counties within the 13 states that constitute Appalachia – Scioto being one. Gopal Singh, an author of the study and a senior health equity adviser at the Health Resources and Services Administration, found that counties with high rates of poverty have the highest infant mortality rate and lowest life expectancy. These areas are seen mostly in central and southern Appalachia.

The study points to specific health problems, including lack of access to doctors and other providers, high rates of preterm births and low-weight births, and high rates of smoking-related diseases, such as lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and heart disease.

“Smoking-related diseases accounted for more than half of the life-expectancy gap between Appalachia and the rest of the country,” the study said.

(Gopal K. Singh, Michael D. Kogan, and Rebecca T. Slifkin. “Widening Disparities In Infant Mortality And Life Expectancy Between Appalachia And The Rest Of The United States, 1990–2013.” Health Affairs, No. 8. 2017.)

Residents of impoverished neighborhoods or communities are at increased risk for mental illness, chronic disease, higher mortality, and lower life expectancy.

“Socioeconomic status is the most powerful predictor of disease, disorder, injury and mortality we have,” says Tom Boyce, MD, chief of UCSF’s Division of Developmental Medicine within the Department of Pediatrics. 

Socioeconomic status is a term that often includes measurements of income, education, and job prestige – individually or in combination. The predictive power of income alone is perhaps most obvious when considering life expectancy. Reports in 2020 show impoverished adults live seven to eight years less than those who have incomes four or more times the federal poverty level, which is $11,770 for a one-person household, whether you live in Silicon Valley, the Rust Belt or the rural South.

Discrepancies in life span grow significantly when race enters the equation. PaulaA Braveman, director of UCSF’s Center on Social Disparities in Health, points to a recent life-expectancy study that used education to reflect socio-economic status and that also considered race. “They found that white people with more than 16 years of education lived 14.2 years longer than black people with less than 12 years of education.”

By now, you may believe I am dwelling too much on poverty and healthcare as they relate to my personal status. True, I have been able to live a relatively healthy life in a place that is notorious for its unhealthy status. My father was actually a cigarette salesman for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, but I never smoked. For that, I am exceedingly appreciative – a tobacco-free existence has allowed me to live not only a healthier life but also one free of the big monetary demands of maintaining a smoking habit.

To close this little analysis, I must return to my educational status. I was extremely fortunate to have parents who funded my college education (Ironically, the income derived from cigarettes largely gave me my bachelor's degree.) I worked part-time during my college years, yet without Dad and Mom, it would have been very difficult to remain in school. I know how blessed I was. I wish everyone had the opportunities I had. 

Getting that jump-start after high school – an introduction to adulthood that was both healthy and educational – had the most influence on my positive existence in Appalachian Scioto County. During a time when my prefrontal cortex – the part of the brain that responds to situations with good judgment and an awareness of long-term consequences – was still developing, I found my life direction. Largely thanks to my loving family and my supportive community, I was able to plant my own roots here.

Whoever I have become is anchored in Southern Ohio. It is a place I dearly love, but a place I fear has become a victim of its own despondency and dejection. A paralysis born of a proud ignorance and substance abuse threatens the common initiative of the people and their willingness to struggle through obstacles in their path. And, God knows, the landmines and pitfalls here can shatter positive thoughts and good intentions.

I'll close with an acknowledgment and a testimony. First, I completely understand why so many talented, intelligent people leave Scioto County for opportunities elsewhere. Simply put, to survive, they have no other choice. I tend to believe they still do take a piece of their down-home upbringing with them to give great local color to new environments. Many of them employ lessons learned from a hardscrabble past to excel elsewhere. 

However, I also know tough, resilient individuals who manage to stay here and find their own keys to success. Refusing to fall into a depressing status quo, they work exceedingly hard to better themselves, their families, and their communities. Many prioritize essential gains and realize sacrifice is a part of life that makes them stronger while they invest time, money, and effort into positive change. It is my hope that their investments yield not a rebirth of the old, but a new-birth of health and prosperity in a beautiful environment with a long history of human development.