OPINION: When a city gets sick: The case for municipal leadership in Jackson’s health recovery
By Deja Abdul-Haqq
JA Guest Writer
It rained in Jackson the morning of the first State of the City address led by Mayor John Horhn. But by the time the event began on the green at the Mississippi Museum of Art, the clouds parted and sunlight broke through, bathing the crowd of about 100 residents, leaders, and reporters in hope. Clusters of neighbors gathered, ready to hear a vision for our future – a future in which they desperately need to believe.
I arrived with anticipation, not just as a citizen, but as someone listening for one specific thing. As Mayor Horhn recounted new initiatives – tackling water, blight, policing, homelessness, and even the fate of Thalia Mara Hall – I listened. When he unveiled a cash support program for single mothers in public housing, my hope flickered. The promise to boost agency and reduce hardship was real. But I was waiting, as I have so often, for our city’s real crisis to be addressed – not just as a statistic, but as a collective moral emergency.
Mayor Horhn ended with an enthusiastic rallying cry: “Jackson is Rising!” The crowd echoed him. But I left with a familiar disappointment. Not one speaker named the urgent truth that overshadows everything else: Jackson is sick.
Our city stands at a crossroads. For all our rich history and vibrant culture, Jackson is also ground zero for some of America’s starkest health inequities. These are not abstract figures – they are the heartbreak in our hospitals, the empty chairs at family meals, the dreams deferred in our neighborhoods.
Jackson leads Mississippi, and Mississippi leads the nation, in deadly statistics: one in seven Mississippians has diabetes; heart disease remains the state’s top killer; rates of hypertension, obesity, stroke, and HIV are among the nation’s highest.
The Jackson Heart Study is world-renowned for good reason – we are living proof of what happens when systems fail to protect their people.
Yet, numbers alone don’t capture the lived reality. Everyday life for too many Jacksonians means making do with boiled water from an aging system, seeing grocery stores vanish while fast-food chains multiply, or watching loved ones miss early care for treatable conditions. This cycle is propelled by the social determinants of health – poverty, poor education, food deserts, and decaying infrastructure.
The city’s recent water crisis was not merely an inconvenience. It was a warning siren of how environmental neglect and health injustice feed off one another, deepening generational despair.
The result? Jackson residents face a double threat: a crushing load of chronic disease, and relentless barriers to prevention, treatment, and recovery. This isn’t just individual misfortune; it’s a systemic, city-wide emergency – one that robs us all of economic prosperity, educational progress, and the simple promise that every child should outlive their parents.
So, what do we do? We treat health equity for what it is: city infrastructure. We must marshal the same energy for public health that we do for rebuilding roads and keeping the lights on. We need to map health “hot spots,” invest in green spaces and healthy food access, and eradicate neighborhoods where care is out of reach.
We must make prevention – especially nutrition and food access – an unshakable city priority. Diseases like diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, depression, anxiety, and HIV are not Jackson’s fate, but our call to arms. That means money for farmers markets, nutrition programs in schools, chronic and infectious disease prevention, and policies that make fresh food cheaper than soda or chips.
Access to care can’t just be a slogan. It needs mobile clinics, telehealth, extended hours, and neighborhood health workers whose faces are familiar and trusted. When people know their doctor is close by and cares, they get help sooner – and outcomes change.
Above all, Jackson must act together. Real change means transparent data, shared accountability, and a seat at the table for residents in setting the agenda. Let’s launch a unified Municipal Health Equity Task Force to break through silos –combining city leadership, public health, housing, business, faith groups, and ordinary citizens.
This is what “rising” really means – not just a catchy slogan, but a mandate to dismantle the unfair burdens choking our city’s future. We can no longer afford to accept that Jackson’s health crisis is too big or too expensive to solve. The true cost is paid in lives cut short and hope lost.
Yet we have assets no other city can match: resilience, legendary community spirit, bold civic organizations, research leaders, and ordinary people hungry for real change. If we lead with urgency, strategy, and heart, Jackson can become not just a warning – but a model for Southern transformation.
Let’s be clear: equity is not a luxury, it’s a lifeline. The path won’t be easy – repairing infrastructure, restoring trust, and rewriting systems never is. But we owe it to every child, every elder, every family – now and for generations yet unborn – to rise together.
Mayor Horhn, city council, health leaders, community champions: This is the moment. We are watching. It’s time to turn our pain into a new story. Let’s make Jackson known not for disease, but for defying the odds –and for proving that justice, in health and in hope, is an urgent, shared destiny.
This is how we rise.
Deja Abdul-Haqq is a long time Mississippi resident, writer, health equity advocate, and Director of Capacity Building programs at My Brother’s Keeper, Inc. and Open Arms Healthcare Center in Jackson. She can be reached at dabdulhaqq@mbk-inc.org.
