TYLER \u2013 ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2021\/02\/UT-Health-East-Texas-150x150.png\")
UT Tyler researchers recently conducted a study to see if health patterns in East Texas aligned with pre-COVID-19 data and they found that East Texans have a shorter expected lifespan than most Texans, according to our news partners at KETK. Research analyst Manuel Reyes and his team at the Hibbs Institute for Business and Economic Research took a look at 23 East Texas counties and found the average life span in this region is 75, which is four years less than the state average.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe leading causes are heart failure and lung cancer; smoking rates are so high in East Texas compared to other portions in the nation,\u201d Reyes said.<\/p>\n
Rural health educator Kim Bush explained that good health or bad health all starts with habits.<\/p>\n
\u201cHabits are generational. [Smoking] is what their parents did, or that\u2019s what their big brother did so they follow suit,\u201d Bush said.<\/p>\n
Bush leads the UT Health Lifestyle Change program, which hosts workshops on quitting bad habits and starting new ones.<\/p>\n
\u201cI suggest let\u2019s see if you can at least get down to one and a half packs. Then next week, let\u2019s see if I can get down to one pack but behavior change is not linear,\u201d Bush said.
\nPandemic disruptions to health care worsened cancer survival, study suggests<\/p>\n
Melissa Ivey with the American Cancer Society focuses on educating the public about appropriate lung screening intervals to detect lung cancer earlier.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe average age for lung screenings is 50 but then if you\u2019ve ever smoked 20 packs of cigarettes in a year, regardless of when you\u2019ve quit smoking, that increases your risk of developing lung cancer and you should get screened earlier,\u201d Ivey said.<\/p>\n
Learn more about UT Tyler\u2019s research on the health status of East Texas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
TYLER \u2013 UT Tyler researchers recently conducted a study to see if health patterns in East Texas aligned with pre-COVID-19 data and they found that East Texans have a shorter expected lifespan than most Texans, according to our news partners at KETK. Research analyst Manuel Reyes and his team at the Hibbs Institute for Business … Continue reading East Texas life expectancy is shorter<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":968991,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2021\/02\/UT-Health-East-Texas-150x150.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1479133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news-archive-archives"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-07 20:18:02","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2021\/02\/UT-Health-East-Texas-150x150.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1479133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1479133"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1479133\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1479501,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1479133\/revisions\/1479501"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/968991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1479133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1479133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1479133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}