"Why us?" I: no answer?

When I am working on the local health issues stories for Athens-Clarke County, I ask the experts one question—“Why us?”

“Why we do have higher health risks than other states?” or “Why do we have higher health risks than other counties?”

Regarding the food safe issue, our county has a higher rate of “high risk” restaurants than other counties in Northeast Georgia.

Regarding the teenage pregnancy issue, Clarke County had the highest rate in Georgia twenty years ago. Georgia had the highest rate in the United State in the 90s.

Regarding the senior obesity, the rate in Clarke and Greene Counties is 55%, much higher than the average Georgia, 37%.

So what is the relation between these facts?

Most experts would give two possible answers: a higher poverty rate and a larger minority population. But, they are not sure about it.

Most researchers don’t study the relationship between the demographic characteristics and their research findings.

In my opinion, this limitation is a natural result produced during the scientific research process.
First, researchers want to control the variance of samples and get significant different results between their target group and their control group (baseline). So they always choose the samples sharing similar characteristics, for example, those living in the same area, having a similar life style, or getting exposed to the same hazard. In that case, they don’t need to answer the question “why us” by comparing their subjects to others who already have been excepted from their research at the very beginning.

Second, the funding is a real problem for researchers. Under most situations, a single institute can’t afford to do everything all by itself. Data collecting and data analysis will be a big challenge if a single institute wants to cover a big area. A better choice is just for a big organization to collect information separately from each area then analyze it together. CDC and WHO gave great examples of how they work on nationwide, even worldwide.