TOWNSHEND — Rural health and pain management specialist Margaret Caudill-Slosberg, a medical doctor and a Ph.D who also holds a master's degree in public health, and who has taught at Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, recently examined democgraphics and health care trends in Windham County.
Caudill-Slosberg, whose official title is Rural Health Quality Improvement Specialist Vermont Program for Quality in Health Care, did this work in partnership with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The link to this site is http://www.vpqhc.gov.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau's estimates as of 2008, 43,176 people live in Windham County. It has a population density of 55 people per square mile. An estimated 9.8 percent of residents live below poverty level.
In terms of age distribution, 21.1 percent of the population is under age 19, while 64.1 percent are between the ages of 19 and 64. The remainder are over age 65 - 12.5 percent between ages 65 and 84 and 2.3 percent over age 85.
Caudill-Slosberg also pointed out that Vermont and New Hampshire have the nation's healthiest populations, attributable she says, to low percentages of minorities and, therefore, lower poverty rates, and also relatively low industrial production.
Windham County is 96.6 percent white. Blacks make up just 0.8 percent of the county's population, with Hispanics at 1.5 percent, American Indians at 0.3 percent and Asian/Pacific Islanders at 1 percent.