Hoi Kiu Tong - Sandy, UT

My primary focus of interest was Injury Prevention and Suicide prevention within Utah. I talked to Tarisa, one of the Department chairs of the Injury Prevention program that oversees the trends and actions that is taken for  I asked her about the trends within Injury prevention in Utah, and specifically at the suicide prevention, and data on the amount, and circumstances of suicide within the State.

We first started the conversation off with just naming 5 top trends within Injury Prevention for the state of Utah right now. The Injury prevention program is currently court funded to find different ways to prevent the highest injury trends right now.

They are: 1) Motor Vehicle

                2)Teen driving

                3) Suicide

                4) Children Malnutrition

                5) Drug Overdose

Motor Vehicle/ Teen Driving:

            This is one of the highest reasons for injury within the State of Utah. Most of the reasons is that the population is not using the protection they are provided every single day. The main protection for Motor injury is the Seat Belt. This is one tool that many drivers in Utah do not think is important, especially the new Teen drivers on the road. Many resources are going towards programs and advertisements of how to make Motor Vehicle safer, and get the idea of seat belts across more Americans that live within the state of Utah. 

Suicide:

            This was my main area of interest, mainly because I had have many experiences with close friends in my life that has attempted, or committed suicide. When we first talked about it, I was shock to find out that Utah had the 7^th highest rate of adult men within the ages of 25-64 to commit suicide. The reason might be because these adults male have the most responsibility for the family, financially and materially. No matter the reason, suicide attempt is something that is occurring every single day within Utah.

Children Malnutrition:

            There are many families living within poverty in Utah, contributing to a lot to the percentages of malnutrition in children, but a lot of it comes from somewhere else. There are many foods in the world today that are deep fried, high in calories, and low in nutrients. Many of the children now is not eating the way they are suppose to, with little vegetables, and a lot of sugar with unhealthy fats. There are many programs within schools these days that try to promote healthy eating, providing school lunches with wheat bread, fruits, and a good serving of vegetables.

Drug Overdose:

            There are many shady areas around Utah, but even within the area of down town Utah, there is still misinformation within the people about how much drugs will kill, and be dangerous to a human being system. Most of this problem comes from prescription drug overdose, mostly painkillers that are prescribed for medical reasons. These are easily over used, and overdosed on when the patient gets addicted to the painkillers, and refills the prescription more then necessary.

These are just a couple of trends within Utah’s Injury prevention program that is headed by the Utah’s department of Health. There are many other trends that public health looks over, and work on, keeping the state safe, and the people within it safe.