Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Healthy discussion held at Grandview session

COLUMBUS  Area residents involved in health care, in one way or another, gathered at the Grandview Plantation Friday to talk about public health.

Edie Greenwood, with the Nevada County Health Unit, said this was an important endeavor for the state and county, as the group was looking at how both are doing in the area of public health now. Its not just the health department. We all have something to do with public health.

Those there included representatives from the Prescott-Nevada County Library, the Office of Emergency Services, the media, both print and broadcast, the Prescott-Nevada County Chamber of Commerce and the public school system, along with health care providers and others.

Sarah Sutton, the rural health specialist with the NCHU, acted as facilitator for the session, telling those gathered what they would be doing with their day. They were divided into two groups, one red, the other blue, and given packets with questions concerning public health. There were four color-coded voting cards to be used on each question asked, and there were several hundred questions. The blue group was required to answer 311 questions in all. The red group had about that many as well.

Sutton gave a PowerPoint presentation giving an overview of what was expected of the groups. She said the questionnaire was based on national public health standards and developed by the Centers for Disease Control.

The idea, she continued, was to use system theory more and get people working as teams instead of individuals. By doing this, it would be possible to get more ideas from different perspectives and a more diverse segment of the population. But, she added, the groups need to be organized so the information could be brought together.

The groups were to look at 10 different health related items and answer the questions based on their knowledge of them. Sutton said there were no right or wrong answers, but the point was to get a consensus based on peoples perspectives of whats available and how well its being handled.

She pointed out there are 10 essential public health services involved. Those are:

1  Monitor health status to identify community health problems;

2  Diagnose and investigate health problems and health hazards in the community;

3  Inform, educate, and empower people about health issues;

4  Mobilize community partnerships to identify and solve health problems;

5  Develop policies and plans that support individual and community health efforts;

6  Enforce laws and regulations to protect health and ensure safety;

7  Link people to needed personal health services and assure the provision of health care when otherwise unavailable;

8  Assure a competent public health and personal healthcare workforce;

9  Evaluate effectiveness, accessibility and quality of personal and population-based health services; and

10  Research for new insights and innovative solutions to health problems.

The scores from the session will be collated and collectively discussed to identify priority areas and develop strategies for the priorities.

Sutton said the Prescott-Nevada County Health Alliance is likely to be the lead organization for this. Arkansas, she added, is the 15th state in the nation to do a statewide assessment of public health issues as part of the National Public Health Performance Program. And, Arkansas is the first state in America to do a local public health performance program.