The Archuleta County Board of Health (BoH) held a regular meeting on Thursday, Oct. 17, with the bulk of the meeting spent discussing the draft Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP).
Archuleta County Public Health Department Director Ashley Wilson presented the draft plan to the board, noting her presentation is a working draft.
She explained that a “more finalized draft” will be presented at the BoH’s November meeting, and an official final draft will be presented at the board’s December meeting.
“So, this is just the beginnings of the draft. We’re really focused on the priority areas,” Wilson said.
Wilson explained that the plan includes three priority areas the board has chosen to focus on, along with strategies under watch priority that focus on improving and increasing health care resources and services.
She noted that other health improvement plans that she referenced include history and context of the area, mentioning that the department will look at community assessment data from San Juan Basin Public Health and the county’s health department.
Wilson went on to mention that priority No. 1 that the board chose to focus on is access to health care with a focus on preventative services.
According to the CHIP, strategy one for the for access to health care and preventative services includes generating measurable increases in child, adolescent and adult vaccination coverage.
Wilson noted that part of the department’s core service that the state asks to be provided in order to secure funding is that the health department work toward increasing youth vaccinations needed for school admittance.
She mentioned that the state “really wants to see” either an increase in vaccinations or an increase in certified waivers for vaccinations, noting there is a group that does not have either.
Wilson also noted that obtaining certified vaccination waivers requires education and training courses to be completed.
The second strategy under access to health services includes increasing community screening opportunities to educate the community around prevention measures that will increase overall health and postpone or prevent onset of disease.
It also includes engaging the community in order to identify leaders and community members who can influence an increase in screening opportunities.
Wilson explained that the county is able to reference data taken from a study called Healthy People 2030.
“This is also going to help us when we work to find additional funding for screening,” she said, noting the data may help identify what the community is interested in in terms of screening services.
Wilson also mentioned that Healthy Archuleta is working on creating a health coalition across the county, which she indicated she is hoping will help provide baseline data for some categories the county is trying to improve services for.
The third strategy under the health care access priority involves identifying specific programs to address prevention needs in the community, and specific measures and tools to overcome barriers.
“I think this is great,” BoH president John Bruss stated, noting the plan to be “pretty comprehensive.”
Bruss also spoke about how different diseases and vaccines can have different measurable, meaningful increases.
He used the example of measles and how that is potentially a life-threatening disease for adults and that there is a number of individuals that don’t get vaccines as adults.
So, “protecting them is really dependent on getting children vaccinated,” he said.
Wilson mentioned that the health department is looking to gather and create a lot of baseline data that is currently missing in the community.
“We don’t know what data we have,” Wilson said. “We certainly as a department do not have a lot of historical data.”
Priority No. 2 listed in the plan is behavioral health prevention services, particularly for youth.
Wilson mentioned things like screen time, social media, the lack of exercise and how the county can create conducive campaigns about negative effects on mental health of youth from those things.
Wilson explained there will be efforts to educate the community on the mental health resources and insurance options available in the community.
“We created our vision to have the healthiest county in Colorado,” Wilson added.
The overarching goal identified for priority two stated in the draft plan is to increase upstream behavioral health solutions for youth and community members while creating partnerships to increase the availability of direct mental health services.
The first strategy listed in the plan under priority two is to increase upstream interventions that could include informal support groups, parent and teen education, and addressing root causes of depressive systems.
Strategy two for behavioral health services is to increase models that reach more people, particularly for youth with substance use prevention “by increasing screenings, parent support groups, crisis intervention and suicide prevention services, identify root cause analysis, and design programs to overcome barriers,” the draft states.
Strategy three for behavioral prevention services includes collaborating with local organizations to raise visibility of mental and behavioral health coverage to encourage more residents to seek health.
Priority No. 3 included in the draft CHIP focuses on social determinants of health, which are identified as education access and quality, health care and quality, neighborhood and built environment, social and community context, and economic stability.
“We know that there’s a lot of things outside of health care specifically that impacts people’s health, which is where the social determinants of health come in,” Wilson said.
She mentioned that the department will need to gather baseline data to see what the community is choosing to focus on in regard to the social determinants of health.
“So, we don’t have a great direction at this point on the social determinants of health,” she added.
Strategy one under the social determinants of health priority includes identifying the most pressing social determinants of health in the county.
Those efforts could include reducing the proportion of residents living in poverty, reducing household food insecurity, and increasing the proportion of schools with policies and practices that promote health and safety, Wilson explained.
She noted that every public school in the county has procedures that promote healthy practices.
Bruss mentioned there is a large group of private and home-schools in the community that could potentially need additional resources in terms of health care options.
Strategies two and three under the social determinants of health include developing a two- to five-year plan to develop programs to increase community engagement addressing the most pressing social determinants of health issues.
To view the draft CHIP in its entirety, visit https://www.archuletacounty.org/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_10172024-1433?html=true.
clayton@pagosasun.com
