Jason LaPorte
Health 100
27 Mar 2013
Community Trends
My wife and I am from the world famous (for it’s wine-scene) Napa Valley. Being parent has opened my eyes to new concerns for safety and overall community health. It was definitely interesting to get some real information about where I’m from and what environment I grew up in. There were some surprising trends, good and bad, about Napa that I never would have expected. My information is all based off a phone interview with Marquita Marquis, Public Health Manager, Napa County. Most of the things she focused on were in positive light, efforts to improve health in the community.
The most impressive thing Ms Marquis spoke about was vaccines. Napa County puts on the best vaccination program I’ve heard of. Statistically, their percent of citizens vaccinated is very impressive. This is due in large part to the fact that vaccinations are offered for free. The county has more than 20 locations to which their mobile clinic travels prior to flu season to distribute the free vaccinations. These vaccine clinics are walk-in and open to anyone. It isn’t even limited to citizens of the country.
According to Ms Marquis, Napa is a success story for breastfeeding. Napa County has the highest percent of exclusively breastfed babies in the state of California. She said this is based on a more recent study and investigation as the the reasons behind this success is still underway. But, the health benefits are immeasurable. Not only is breastfeeding economically desirable, the nutritional benefits alone are incredible. And in conjunction with the vaccinations spoken of above, breast milk has been proven to offer an incredible fortitude to babies against countless sicknesses.
When Ms Marquis spoke of the Health Department’s involvement in community development I thought it questionable. She says that is the typical reaction to their efforts. But after some explanation I was completely onboard. The objective is to create “complete streets.” This effort is obviously focused in new developments were an effect is attainable. But, the objective of “complete streets” is to build a community with features to promote healthy living. The obvious things are parks and recreation areas for children to be active, bike and walking trails encouraging better health and less pollution.
Ms Marquis spoke for some time about some large scale programs that are prevalent such as NACCHO and MAPP. She continued on about how the County of Napa is implementing many of these ideas in a more local way. About six months ago they launched a program entitled, Live Healthy Napa County. This effort is focused on education to promote change within the community. Is started with a coalition of more than 50 groups defining what health and wellness really are and how their community can improve. These groups include police, fire, and emergency medical departments, local businesses, non-profit and community groups, and schools. She said the program’s studies haven’t come back with any statistics of success yet but participants feel that are having positive impact in the community.
The last major thing Ms Marquis spoke about wasn’t directly on public health. It was an interesting perspective on the finances behind public health. She works for the Public Health Division of the Health and Human Services Agency, and she said that her division alone has more than 20 public health programs they run/oversee. Each of these programs are funded from a different source, many federally funded. Each of these different sources have different criteria for qualification of funding/grants. She says this is often a serious obstacle to getting the people in need the help that they need. Fortunately Napa is fiscally conservative and typically has excess to pick up the slack but it’s a shame for anyone to suffer because of bureaucratic red-tape.
No comments:
Post a Comment