Public Health Community Trends in Washington County.

Tessa Wilkes

11/13/12

HLTH 100

Location: Washington County – Oregon

            When researching whom I would contact in regards to finding out the Public Health community Trends in Oregon I wanted to focus on Washington County, which is where I’m from. I had a hard time finding an exact person to contact so I decided to contact Jean C. O’Connor, JD, DrPH who is the Public Health Deputy Director for all of Oregon. We talked about many trends, many of them being the same as the ones specific for Washington County. She referred me to Washington County’s website for further and specific info, if any, on these trends, which was also really helpful.

The Top 5 Public Health Community Trends of Washington County are:

1.    Emergency Preparedness. I think as a result of the increased amount of natural disasters over the last 10 years Washington County has been promoting Emergency Preparedness. Especially with Oregon lying within the “Ring of Fire”, having the locals be prepared is very important. They provide courses for locals to take, pamphlets and a lot of information on how to get prepared. They not only promote for you to personally get prepared but to also volunteer to help other to prepare. One service they have is the “Shakeout game”, which helps you know how to prepare and ready your home for an earthquake, as well as CPR training.

2.    HIV/ Sexually Transmitted Infections. There has been STI investigations and prevention programs in place to consult with health care staff to determine the best treatment for the patient. IN regards to HIV, 50-66% of locals meet sexually partners over the Internet or other public sex environments. For this high-risk population, who might not have proper education on HIV prevention, Washington County has increased the access to testing counseling.  With seeing a decrease in the amount of HIV positive cases, they are now doing more prevention than treatment.

3.    Family Planning – Maternal and child care.  A current system that Washington County has in place is a program called “Healthy Start”, which promotes positive parenting and healthy childhood growth and development in families for at risk for poor parenting outcomes. Services that “Healthy Start” offers are home visits, development screenings, nutritional information, and assessment of family’s strengths and needs. Also, connecting families with healthcare providers and monitoring immunizations. I think this program is so great because a lot of these at risk families with either do not have the knowledge or resources to properly take care of their children.

4.    Environmental health – Safe food.  A part of Washington County’s Food Bourne Illness Reduction efforts is to improve time/temperature compliance in restaurants. These types of violations were reported in 42% of the semi-annual inspections in 2008 and 47% of semi-annual inspections in 2010.  To decrease the amount of violations to the time/temperature compliance, Washington County is going to be improving the time/temperature education and training during inspections. I think this is a great idea because then the restaurants know exactly what they are doing wrong and how to change it.

5.    Communicable Disease/TB.  Washington County officials are trained and prepared to respond to disease reports 24/7 365 days a year. In the last couple of years reports of TB have decreased nation-wide, but this is not the case in Oregon. The number of cases report had actually increased 20% from 2008 to 2009, which is surprising. I remember in high school there being an outbreak and a lot of kids I went to school had to get tested. To deal with this problem they have been and are implementing programs and investigations.