A single low-income mom with three small children comes in to the San Juan Basin Health Department office to receive education and support along with vouchers from the Women, Infants, and Children program to help provide her family with healthy foods such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains and milk.
In conversation, the mom shares with the educator that she and her children currently do not have health insurance and how she hopes to be done having children. The educator sets up appointments for the woman to meet with our staff to discuss insurance and birth-control options. The mother feels instant stress relief and lets the educator know how much she appreciates the education and support and how these services help make her a better mother. This is public health, and just one example of the work we are doing every day at SJBHD.
While a doctor treats people who are sick, public health tries to prevent people from getting sick or injured in the first place. In a nutshell, public health promotes and protects the health of people and the communities where they live, learn, work and play. That is no easy task.
At SJBHD, we provide myriad services to promote wellness and encourage healthy behaviors.
What exactly does this look like? We provide routine restaurant inspections to protect the public from food-borne disease. We provide basic dental services to adults and children to help prevent tooth decay. We provide vaccines to prevent the spread of disease. We educate our young people about the risks of alcohol, tobacco and drug use. We speak out for laws that promote smoke-free air, more green space for our young people and provide affordable health care for all.
Just recently, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of President Barack Obama’s health-care law that allows the government to continue to provide nationwide tax subsidies to help low-income and middle-class Americans buy health insurance. SJBHD and other community partners have been very involved in closing the gap of the number of uninsured Coloradans in the Southwest region, thanks to Medicaid expansion and the state marketplace, Connect for Health Colorado. Between 2013 and 2014, the uninsured rates in Archuleta and La Plata counties dropped from 19 percent to approximately 9 percent (Cover America, 2015). Work in this area will continue. SJBHD will serve as the hub for our five-county region (Archuleta, Dolores, La Plata, Montezuma and San Juan) and strive to connect people to the marketplace and help them enroll in their most affordable health-insurance option.
At SJBHD, we believe every individual has the right to good health. This is simply a snapshot of some of the ways we are striving to make that possible. In our upcoming monthly columns, we will discuss the work we do and cover important public-health topics. For a more detailed overview of our programs and services, take a look at our 2014 annual report at http://sjbhd.org/who-we-are/reports/.
Michelle Wilson, MPH, is the planning and communications specialist at San Juan Basin Health Department.
