Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Health Unit Ensures Public's Safety

Most of you probably know that you have a local health department in your county, and some of you may know that it is where you go to get birth certificates or your child immunized.

Have you ever wondered what else it does?

You might be surprised to learn that your local health unit is working everyday to ensure that your community has clean water, that our food supply is safe, and that diseases are kept under control. Public health is dedicated to keeping you and your hometown healthy.

This week local public health providers are joining in a national celebration to recognize the accomplishments of public health and acknowledge the individuals who work in these programs.

Since the turn of the century, the life expectancy of Americans has increased from 45 to 75 years. While advances in medicine are credited with five of those years, public health measures are responsible for the vast majority of the gain 25 years of living.

Our public health system, with its focus on primary prevention, continues to be our first defense against disease and injury and the basis for future improvements in the length and quality of our lives.

If working properly, many of the activities of public health are invisible. If public health is doing its job, you do not get sick from drinking water or eating in a restaurant. When it fails, people and communities suffer and personnel health care costs increase. When public health succeeds, people flourish and communities prosper.

There were not always as many reasons to celebrate as there are today. In the early 1900s Arkansans could not depend on the purity of their water supply. Untreated sewage was dumped in rivers, lakes and alleys. It's no wonder typhoid, yellow fever and plague thrived.

Today, thanks to pubic health, regulations are enforced and routine testing is conducted to quickly identify potential hazards before they become threats to public health, so that outbreaks of waterborne disease are rare. Similarly, when floods, earthquakes or tornadoes threaten the water supply and sanitation facilities, public health moves quickly to protect our citizens.

Have you ever wondered why you can walk into a restaurant and order from the menu or purchase items from your local super market with risking health or life?

The answer is public health. There are local sanitarians in each county inspecting the facilities you frequent to ensure they meet required standards and regulations.

Rather than focusing on one sick individual, public health focuses on activities such as these that affect the health of the entire community. Public health organizes community wide efforts to prevent disease and protect against health hazards.

Public health also helps us understand how the things we do impact our health. As research provides greater understanding of diseases and conditions that affect us, public health takes the information public, encouraging us to do the things that will not only result in the absence of disease, but improve our quality of life.

These methods have been successful. Accomplishments of public health include declines in illness and injury heart disease and stroke, smoking, infectious diseases, and motor vehicle and workplace injuries.

Through these are significant achievements, the job of public health is not complete. There are persistent problems that demand continued watchfulness. Familiar diseases once thought to be a thing of the past, like tuberculosis, are reappearing and have evolved to become resistant to therapeutic drugs. New diseases like AIDS and Lyme disease present new challenges.

As long as we face teenage pregnancies, violence, substance abuse, sexually transmitted diseases, and other conditions associated with high-risk behaviors, public health will play an essential role in ensuring the health of all Arkansans.

Public health in Arkansas has been busy this past year. We are celebrating the routine jobs of inspecting milk and dairy products and educating the public and health professionals on injury prevention techniques. We are also celebrating a number of special projects we have worked on including:

• Investigating an outbreak of mumps in Howard County. Twelve cases were identified and 659 doses of measles, mumps and rubella vaccine were administered.
• Providing 3,491 mammograms and 2,590 pap smears through the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention's Breast and Cervical Cancer Control Program.
• Providing training to teachers and counselors at Westside School in Jonesboro on violence prevention, recognizing early warning signs and risk and protective factors.

Contact your local health unit to find out how they are celebrating Public Health Week, April 5-11, and join in the festivities.