Terri van Wyk

Terri van Wyk

Top 5 public health trends in Salt Lake County

I chose to focus on Salt Lake County and I had the opportunity to speak to Dr. Dale Hull MD, MPA who is the founder for the Hull foundation and cofounder of Neuroworx, a non-profit organization to help those with Spinal cord injuries and traumatic brain injuries. Dr. Hull stated that he believed the top five public health trends in Salt Lake County are as follows:

Access for those with disabilities:

This was a very important issue for Dr Dull as he himself suffered a spinal cord injury that left him a quadriplegic and he has since spent his life helping those with neurological disabilities. Access to healthcare for those with disabilities is a vital public health issue hat he believes needs more attention; healthcare covers much more than just insurance, it also deals with things like physical access to buildings, appointments and accessible transportation. Those with disabilities are not only affected by their disability but usually have many co morbidities that are usually preventable such as pressure sores & depression that could be prevented with proper access.

Child Immunizations:

            Dr Hull stated that Utah has a relatively high number of parents who do not correctly vaccinate their children, he is not sure why this is and could be related to the Autism scare or to the believe that those diseases aren’t around any more. The CDC states that even though there may be very few cases of the diseases around we should continue to vaccinate until that disease is considered completely eliminated; they showed that Japan reduced their pertussis vaccination in 1974 which resulted in an epidemic in 1979.

Insurance:

Dr hull believed that being uninsured is a prevalent public health problem in Salt Lake County. Working closely this those with disabilities he can see just how much stress that places on ones life as the average medical costs of a high spinal cord injury is about $985,774 for the first year alone and over your life time is about an average of $4,373,912. Even those who do not have a traumatic injury, being uninsured leads to poorer health and higher medical costs over time as they usually delay seeking medical attention until it is an emergency. Prevention is vital in this day and age and being insured provides access to those clinical services

Maternal health:

            Due to the high number of children Utah women tend to have on average, Dr Hull believes that maternal health should be on our radars. Dr Hull was a gynecologist before his injury and so this is where one of his expertise lies.  There are far too many women in Salt Lake County who do not realize that you should start taking prenatal vitamins before getting pregnant and not only once you are already pregnant. He also believes that depression among mothers is another area we should focus on.

Caregiver burdens:

There are an increasing number of caregivers in Salt Lake County and these numbers will continue to grow as will the complexity of their issues that they face. Care giving places an enormous toll on a person, mentally, emotionally and physically, and as been associated with increased levels of depression and anxiety as well as higher use of psychoactive medications, poorer physical health, compromised immune function, and increased mortality. Due to the fact that this is a fulltime job is usually causes increased poverty in the family as it is usually unpaid work. Increased poverty leads to increased health risk for both the caregiver and the person they are looking after.