To schools and offices
The county health department will pursue educational initiatives aimed at school kids and employees in the workplace. “One thing is very achievable, which is helping improve the health of the upcoming generation by educating parents not to put in high-calorie and processed food in their kids’ brown bags,” said Smith. The county will continue to sponsor radio ads and billboards to promote its health agenda, she noted.
The health department has hired the Center for Research, Regional Education & Outreach (CRREO), the research and public policy think tank based at SUNY New Paltz, to do the community health assessment. (Eve Waltermaurer, CRREO’s director of research and evaluation, spoke briefly at the meeting and organized the hour-long focus group sessions that followed Dr. Smith’s presentation.) The first step, said Smith, is to bring all the health care nonprofit and for-profit organizations to the table both to assess the county’s health needs and tabulate the existing services. “We really cannot do this alone,” she said.
Given the seven percent cut in state funding, with more cuts likely coming as the result of the sequestration, Smith said that inter-agency cooperation was essential. Everyone from the CEO of the YMCA of Ulster County to representatives from Gateway, the American Cancer Society, and Cornell Cooperative Extension were present at the meeting, and she encouraged them to provide feedback at the focus group session.
Smith noted that the health department staff has been reduced, which she said was a necessity given the cost of county employee benefits.
Moving up
According to the county health rankings established five years ago by the University of Wisconsin’s Population Health Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Ulster County ranks 29 out of the state’s 62 counties in 2012, up a few notches from 33 in 2010. Smith’s presentation included a chart showing how the county fared compared to national and state benchmarks for various types of health outcomes and factors and demographics in 2012. Here are some of the highlights.
