Carter Spear

Health 100

Community Trends

Stephanie Dockweiler, Health Department Director of Malheur County in Eastern Oregon.

1. Eastern Oregon is a very interesting and diverse area to to live in. The first area of concern that Stephanie brought up was the low median income. The median income per family was a staggering 16,00 dollars a year. With an income like this, there is plenty of poverty and that translates into poor health. As we have learned in class, overall health habits are higher in the more wealthy areas and lower in areas with more poverty.


2. Malheur County covers a vast amount of geographical land in Eastern Oregon. In fact, Malheur county covers 9,000 square miles with a population of 31,000. Stephanie classified this county as rural frontier communities. She explained to me that it is difficult to keep a smooth running public health agency with so much distance and land to cover. Some cities do not even have any active healthcare facilities. For some, great distances are traveled to get proper healthcare.

3. Farming is a huge party of most communities within the Malheur county. This brings in large migrant populations. This is a major problem. A large population of migrants are not citizens and are afraid of being deported. This interferes with continuous healthcare and prevents families from getting connected with care. Medicaid is often denied. One major issue that Stephanie explained was that for some migrants, healthcare is provided while having a baby, but they are denied coverage on some parts of care after the baby is born.

4. A large number of people simply do not have insurance. Some families get on waiting lists because of a limited number of Medicaid spots. On the other hand, some families make too much money to qualify for certain health benefits through the government but are not offered insurance from their jobs that they have. With very limited public health options, the county suffers with trying to meet the needs of everyone regarding Medicare and insurance options. She explained that that is very hard on some families and creates problems that no one enjoys dealing with.

5. One of the lowest immunization rates in the country is our neighbors over in Idaho. Stephanie was glad that that did not rub off on us. She did explain that although our immunization rates are fairly good, that in the last five or six years there has been an increase of pertussis among the older population. They do a good job at immunizing the children shortly after birth, but she explained that the older people are not getting the message to get an adult pertussis booster.

It was very interesting to talk to a professional about the health of my own county!