Matt Crowder

Matt Crowder

Health 100

Top Five Public Health Trends in the Utah County Area

I was able to talk to Steve Mickelson, Director of Nursing for Utah County.  Steve was a very nice person who gave me five trends in Public Health in the Utah county area and/or Utah.  These included influenza, Pertussis (whooping cough), Inversion, West Nile Virus, and decline of births in Utah County.

By January 7, influenza (the flu) had hit Utah the hardest all year already totalling 117 hospitalized cases.  And by December of 2012, outpatient visits for flu symptoms had climbed to nearly 20 percent in Utah, and flu-related child and infant deaths had reached about 6.5 percent according to the CDC

(http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865570149/Flu-season-hitting-Utah-hard-early.html?pg=all).

Also, the Utah Department of Health stated that “there are nearly two absences per 100 people per day.”  It is recommended that everyone receives a flu shot this year.

According to Fox13Now, Utah in 2012, cases for whooping cough have doubled since 2011.  This puts the state at four times the national average.  There were 611 cases in 2011 and 1497 cases in 2012.  Whooping cough, as defined by google, is “A contagious bacterial disease chiefly affecting children, characterized by convulsive coughs followed by a whoop.”  This can be dangerous for people and it is recommended to get vaccinated if possible.

One of the things that Steve said to look into was the inversion in the Utah county area, he said that inversion is usually really bad in winter.  According to Universe.byu.edu it says that one of the ways to rid the air of inversion is a big storm.  My RA for Helaman Halls has previously instructed us to try to workout only indoors.  And if we workout outside to do so sparingly.

Steve also mentioned to me about the West Nile Virus in Utah.  Steve said that nationwide there has been 55,387 cases and 243 of which were fatal.  This was HUGE compared to 2002.  For comparison, Utah had five cases, and one of which was fatal.  A tragic accident that needs to be avoided by applying bug spray.

Steve mentioned to me the drop in amount of births in the Utah County area.  He said sarcastically that Utah County is known for being a bread basket of babies in the U.S.  However, there was a drop of 900 births from the 2011 to 2012.  I’m not exactly sure of the importance of this, but it could be that the family is becoming less significant in the Utah County area.