Maggie Brown

HLTH 100

Public Health Community Trends

I spoke with Brenda Rogers, a Public Health Nurse with Southeastern Utah District Health, located in Moab, Utah. When I asked about the top 5 health trends, issues, and patterns in her community she listed off tourists, emergency care, STD prevalence, location of programs, and obesity rates. 

The first thing Brenda mentioned as an issue in her community, was tourists. Obviously in her area of Moab, it is a big tourist attraction with seasonal adventurers and numerous events bringing people from all around the world to Moab as a hub for tourists and tourist attractions. She mentioned how tourists come and bring diseases with them infecting locals and receiving immediate and emergency care because their normal medical provider is elsewhere. They greatly overpower local practitioners and demand immediate attention as their stay in limited. 

Along the same lines, Brenda mentioned how this affects their emergency departments, Insta-cares, and other immediate medical provincials. Prices are greatly increased in Emergency Departments because of their increases usage among tourists opposed to the general family practitioners. It makes them hard to treat without a medical history of the patient and even family members. ER’s are often busy and overloaded, not allowing for attention to all patients. The health professionals are not getting paid what they deserve according to their demanding work loads. 

To my surprise, Brenda said that the number one infectious disease they deal with is Sexually Transmitted Diseases. She said these are most common in those in the age range of twenty to thirty years old. Because of the active nature of the activities rampant in Moab and surrounding areas, most tourists are young and active. They seek medical attention for quick fixes and are gone before proper diagnosis and follow up are evaluated. This is a result of the limited time spent in Moab by tourists and the mixture of young people. 

In this part of the state, there is an uneven distribution of population with people scattered all around with a few groupings of large settlements. This makes for the decreased access people have to programs to promote health. There are only a few offices with programs and they are spread out because of the geographical region of the state. People have to drive farther to go to Planned Parenthood or weight loss facilities to participate in good behaviors. This adds some stress and difficulty on promoting wellness. 

Finally, Brenda talked about how rates of obesity are only increasing and in all populations in the spectrum. The young and the old are equally affected by obesity and it is a growing problem in minorities such as Latinos. Brenda deals a lot with young mothers, children, and infants and sees obesity as an epidemic. There is a lot of focus put on obesity in the county but not many resources to take care of it.