Karlie Mitchell

For my community trends assignment I contacted Kari Griffin who is a RN at the Brigham City Community Hospital in Box Elder County, she is the Women’s Health Senior Director.  I asked her what the top five health trends were in Brigham City and surrounding areas.  She stated the following trends: Obesity, Immunizations, Osteoporosis, Improvement of facilities and healthcare workers, and Depression.

           The first trend was Obesity along with unhealthy lifestyles.  She went on to say that Obesity was the main cause of almost all other diseases and health problems.  She says its getting worse and worse mostly for older women.  People are exercising less and eating more junk food and not getting the proper nutrients that they need.

            The second trend was Immunizations.  She said that people especially mothers are not receiving the proper immunizations that they should be.  She talked about rumors and one person has a bad experience and then the whole community doesn’t want to receive immunizations.  She says it is interesting how mothers will come in to get there children immunized, but they won’t receive any themselves.

            Osteoporosis was the third trend that she talked about, which surprised me because I thought Brigham City was full of younger families.  I learned that a high percent of the elderly women in Brigham have Osteoporosis.  Mostly because of certain medications and sedentary lifestyles, as well as not having proper nutrients.

            The forth trend was improvement of facilities and healthcare workers.  Brigham City is a fairly small community, however there still isn’t sufficient equipment at the facilities as well as staff.  It’s been a continuous challenge trying to balance the healthcare workers with how many sick people actually come in and use the facilities.  She says it is something that they will most likely always be trying to balance.

            The fifth trend is Depression.  She talked about the economy and how it has affected the smaller businesses, which Brigham City has a lot of self owned businesses.  She said that she believes that there is a link with this and depression.  People’s financial lifestyles are changing, causing extra stressors in many lives.  Also another high form of depression she mentioned was post partum depression.  I thought it was very interesting that she listed depression in the top five.