Assignment 1: What’s in Your County?
For this assignment, you will look at your local public health department’s (LPHD) community assessment or reports on your county’s health issues. Most LPHDs have web sites where they post information related to reportable diseases and outbreaks that have occurred. You may need to visit your state public health department to obtain these statistics. An example of such a database can be found at the Arkansas Department of Health website. https://www.healthy.arkansas.gov/ Most will also have this information for counties.
Once you find the information, for this assignment you will write a 5- to 6-page paper that describes some of your county’s social determinants of health and 3 specific epidemiological issues your county faces. These issues may include such things as:
a specific food-borne illness
a specific health issue related to an environmental hazard or natural disasters
a specific chronic medical condition
a specific reportable infectious disease or social issue
Tie each issue to the county’s relevant social determinants of health. Each issue has county incidence and prevalence data, causes, and specific impacts or effects on the individual and community. Impacts may be medical, economic, psychological, social, legal, ethical, etc. Include specific public health Interventions at the state and county level for each identified issue. Include specific names of programs.
Another source of information we can use is healthy people 2020