HEALTH SPEAKER: Dr. Jennifer Walthall, Indiana’s deputy state health commissioner, was the featured speaker for the 2015 Boone County Health Summit Wednesday in the Herman B Wells Room at Lebanon High School. Staff photo by Rod Rose
An ambitious effort to improve the health of local residents in five general areas, was announced Wednesday at the 2015 Boone County Health Summit.
The Boone County Health Improvement Plan, or CHIP, was written with input from public and private organizations over the past year, under the umbrella of the Boone County Health Department.
Steps to raise awareness and achieve specific goals in obesity and nutrition, substance abuse, chronic conditions — specifically cancer and Alzheimer’s disease deaths — mental health and mental disorders, and tobacco use are outlined in the project.
Research into those topics revealed some surprising information.
Two of every five county residents will develop some form of cancer. Many of those victims will die.
Death rates are based on the mortality rate per 100,000 population. Boone’s lung cancer rate of 63.4, prostate cancer rate of 35.9 and female breast cancer rate of 28.3 were each higher than the national and state average.
The death rate from Alzheimer’s disease, which accounts for 60 to 80 percent of all dementia cases, was 35.1 percent, nearly 10 points higher than Indiana’s average and 11.6 points above the national average.
“This is going to be a work in progress,” with continuing evaluation of progress in each area, said Cindy Murphy, RN, BCHD administrator. Issues that may have been missed will be added to the plan.
“Every issue is a local issue,” she said. “An ounce of public health is worth a pound of medicine.”
Nearly 100 people, representing schools, government, charitable and social service organizations, and the general public attended the event in the Herman B Wells Community Room at Lebanon High School.
Dr. Jennifer Walthall, Indiana’s deputy state health commissioner, was the keynote speaker.
The audience included representatives from “all sorts of different fields you wouldn’t expect to come together in one room,” she said. “We have a whole group of people you would not think would connect.”
“We have an understanding there is a connection and that connection is public health,” Walthall said.
Boone County Health Officer Dr. Herschell Servies said, “Public health permeates every part of medicine. It doesn’t matter what field you are in.”
“Why all of us? Why now, and why all in the same room?” Walthall said. “We need to respond to all of these things for our community health improvement plan as individual citizens, as well as in the careers we’ve chosen.”
Walthall, who is the state’s first-ever deputy health commissioner, told how an HIV outbreak in Scott County exemplified the multi-faceted response to a public health emergency.
The public health nurse there contacted the state after discovering five HIV cases — one revealed in a routine pregnancy screening. Until then, only one HIV case had been recorded in Scott County — in 2008.
“This is how public health is supposed to work,” Walthall said.
“Unless we look at a problem, whether HIV or infant mortality or Alzheimer’s or diabetes, it has to be done with that comprehensive lens.”
Murphy said that an HIV outbreak is possible in Boone County. “We are not yet seeing an increase in HIV cases,” she said. But there is an increase in hepatitis C infections, with the majority of those patients having a record of IV drug abuse and incarceration.
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