Robyn Cooper - Public Health Trends in San MArcos

For this assignment I spoke with Dr. Karen Nicholson, a public health teacher at California State University- San Marcos. She said that the top five public health community trends in San Marcos are nutrition concerns, obesity, drug use, sexually transmitted diseases, and other infectious diseases such as the flu and tuberculosis.  However, she added as a disclaimer that she represents more the students of CSUSM, rather than the community of San Marcos.

One of San Marcos’ main public health trends is nutrition concerns.  This does not necessarily address obesity, but rather the diets of the residents of San Marcos. Rather than eating foods that promote good health, many of the residents eat what is quickest in excess. This ranges from fast food to  chips from a 7-11. I definitely noticed while I was going to high school that there were a significantly high amount of high school students who would eat processed food frequently compared to my previous town in Minnesota.

The next concern is obesity. This relates to the previous concern since obesity is caused mainly by a lack of exercise and healthy nutrition.  Since there are so many immigrants, the Mexican culture of food could be one of the major factors of this problem. Obesity can lead to increased health problems such as diabetes and heart disease along with reduced life expectancy.  Rates of obesity in California are relatively low compared to other states yet this still is a major concern for San Marcos. 

Another public health trend in San Marcos is drug use.  The San Marcos public health professional said that the strongest concerns were tobacco and marijuana use.  This leads to emotional and physical attachments to substances which can be hard to overcome. They also increase various health implications.  Going to high school in San Marcos made it very evident to me that Marijuana especially is very common in the area.

Sexually transmitted diseases were also mentioned as a major public health trend in San Marcos.  This could attribute to a lack of education about how to protect against STDs.  Prevention could include contraceptives or vaccinations. With a few preventative measures, this problem could be largely decreased. However, this problem still runs rampant in San Marcos.

Finally, Dr. Nicholson mentioned as a different category that one of the major public health concerns in San Marcos is infectious disease. She mentioned that the flu and tuberculosis were particular concerns.  For both of these however, there are preventative measures like vaccinations that could help decrease the problem.