Pennington Biomedical’s Study of Assumption Parish Shares Initial, Surprising Data
March 16, 2026
Collaborating with Communities to Improve Rural Health at Scale
Researchers at LSU’s Pennington Biomedical Research Center are collaborating on a large, first-of-its-kind study to find out why people who live in rural areas suffer disproportionally from heart and lung diseases, stroke, diabetes, and obesity. LSU’s team has been working with two rural Louisiana parishes, Assumption and Franklin, which—despite similar demographics—see radically different health outcomes: some of the best (Assumption) and some of the most challenging (Franklin) among rural communities across the South.
After collecting data from one in every two dozen adults in Assumption Parish, the researchers are sharing initial findings with parish residents this month. One of the key takeaways so far is this: Your health is strongly tied to your education level—and much more so than to your income or age. For example, residents who didn’t graduate from high school are more than twice as likely to have high blood pressure and high cholesterol than those who went to college.
Now, the research team is collaborating with the parish to get this new data into the hands of residents and those who can use it to improve lives.
Dr. Aimee Moran at the Thibodaux Regional Family Medicine Clinic is an LSU and LSU Health New Orleans graduate who encouraged her patients to participate in the study and also chose to participate herself.
“We Assumption Parish residents are a proud lot, and it can be especially hard to ask for help when problem areas are not identified. With LSU’s study providing data, we can now discover trends, and design and implement meaningful programs that directly impact the health of our residents, while creating jobs.”
Dr. Aimee Moran, family medicine physician at Thibodaux Regional Family Medicine Clinic