My family just currently moved to West Virginia and I don’t
know anything about the area so it didn’t really interest me. Therefore I just found the public health
trends in Utah County. I was able to
speak with Eric Edwards who is the Director of Health Promotion for the Utah
County Health Department.
1. While
talking to the representative from the Utah County Health department I
discovered (and I also learned in class), that while infectious disease was the
leading cause of death over 100 years ago, chronic disease is the leading cause
today. Most of these chronic diseases
are brought on by unhealthy behaviors and decisions that one might already
have. For instance their lack of a well
balanced diet, smoking or reluctance to exercise. Public Health workers are trying to combat
this issue by implementing chronic disease, physical activity, obesity, and
nutrition programs.
2. One
of the trends that I find quite interesting is the growing obesity rate (no pun
intended). Obesity is no longer a
problem among the adult age range, but is effecting the population at every
age. Not only is being extremely
overweight unhealthy in and of itself, but it leads to more serious problems
such as chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease. Something else that I found shocking was that
doctors no longer classify type II diabetes as and “adult onset diabetes”
because children are developing the disease at a very young age. Efforts to help decrease the amount of
obesity in our community have also turned to preventative measures by
increasing healthy eating, exercise and implementing nutrition and physical
activity programs.
3.
Another trend that I found interesting was
Prescription Drug Abuse. My mother is a
pharmacist and I talked to her a little bit about this trend. She noticed that while we lived in Utah and
she worked here, she dispensed more ADD and ADHD medication than she has in any
other state we lived in. Prescription
abuse seems to be a rapidly growing trend here in Utah and the Utah County
Substance Abuse Prevention team has helped to decrease the death rate. There have also been changes in Federal Law
making it harder to purchase Sudafed and other controlled substances, which are
used to make meth.
4.
While immunizations are one of the greatest
achievements in the public health community, there are still those who are
skeptical due to false rumors and misinformation and they choose to opt out of
receiving their vaccinations. Over the
years the Utah County Health Department and others around America have done
their best to educate their communities on the benefits of immunizations as
well as lowering the prices and making vaccines more readily available to
everyone.
5.
One of the last health trends we talked about
dealt with the environment, which if anyone has stepped outside this semester
they can see that the air quality in Utah has suffered. We even made national news for having some of
the worst air in America! This is due to
the ever-increasing population here in Utah County and even the state as a
whole. The Utah County Health Division
is working to help prevent air and water pollution here in our community. Because of poor air quality many students in
elementary schools haven’t been allowed to attend recess out doors. I even noticed while driving visibility was
hindered.
As
I did this project and talked with Eric I realized that in almost every health
trend the main was of combatting the issue had to do with preventative measures
rather than how to solve the problem.
This project gave me a better understanding and more respect for what
public health professionals really do on a day to day basis.
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