Blair Crickmore

Public Health Community Trends

Interviewed: Julia Hall (Epidemiologist)

Influenza: According to Julia, influenza has not really been major this year in Utah. Influenza is pretty unpredictable and therefore, professionals must try different things every year. They did find a new strain that was related to a pig farm in Northern Utah that has also been discovered in midwestern pigs, leading to an increase of awareness. Influenza strains are always evolving and changing and the vaccines every year are the best guess at what will be popular in transmission between populations. Vaccines for influenza are created about a month before the season begins. Also, she noted that influenza vaccines are just an attempt to decrease illness.

Chickenpox: According to the website that I was referred to by the person I interviewed, the number of chickenpox cases in Utah have been declining since 2006. The peak of the chickenpox virus was before 1995 when a vaccine didn't exist. The largest source of outbreak in Utah schools is due to children that are either non-vaccinated or under-vaccinated. In the opinion of Julia, more people seem to be getting vaccinated thus decreasing the amount of chickenpox cases in the United States. Because the overall trend is decreasing, chickenpox is not a main focus of health for epidemiologists.

Hepatitis C: According to the website I was referred to, there were 1,120 cases of chronic Hepatitis C and 11 cases of acute Hepatitis C in 2011 (I used 2011 because the 2012 statistics were not available). The most cases of chronic Hepatitis C were found in Salt Lake Valley, and the most cases of acute Hepatitis C were found in Summit County. Julia said that a person can have Hepatitis C for years and have no symptoms, and so it is difficult to discover the source. Public Health really cannot do much for this disease, except for perhaps tattoo or IV drug education. Besides creating sickness, Hepatitis C is also very costly to cure.

Vaccines: In regards to vaccines, there is a general need for Public Health officials to educate Utah County. Julia said that it is important to be equally as convincing as the competition in all aspects. Vaccines vary for every disease, and so does their dependability and effectiveness. Julia emphasized that even though vaccines are sometimes not 100% dependable or effective, it is still important to get vaccinated. Although there is still a chance one may get sick, that chance is lessened with a vaccine.

Pertussis (Whooping Cough): In 2011, the number of pertussis cases doubled from 352, in 2010, to 645. According to the website, pertussis is a cyclical disease that usually peaks every three to five years. The last year that pertussis peaked in Utah was 2006. In the opinion of Julia, vaccinations decreased the number of cases for a while, but professionals are currently seeing cases appear from children that were previously vaccinated. The age range for these children is from five years old to 14 years old, which proves that the previous vaccine was not as effective as they thought.