Report on public health given at Sept. 26 meeting

When citizens and local officials gathered at the Alleghany Wellness Center Sept. 26, they became privy to results of a community health and environmental assessment.

The event was hosted by the Wellness Center and Alleghany County Healthy Carolinians and the presentation of information was given by Senior Research Associate Sheila S. Pfaender M.S., who serves as the assistant director for program and resource development with the North Carolina Institute for Public Health.

The audience was first welcomed by Danny Staley, who serves as the director of the Applachian Health Department. The department serves Alleghany, Ashe and Watauga counties.

After telling everyone it took about a year to collect the information, Staley explained, "By law, we are required to do an assessment of our community's health every four years. A lot of times, communities take that and sort of do a little review and they look at the data and they say, ‘Yeah, our three top conditions for death are going to be heart disease, stroke and cancer.' That's true in almost every community in the United States.

"However, Appalachian District's philosophy is our people deserve better. We know some of the major causes of death in this area. But we need to know what each individual communities have going on in them that impacts health. The key to addressing all these things you find is in an assessment. We go through assess, address and assurance, the three tenants of public health that we live by. Assessment is key because it helps us arrive at how to best use the resources that we have to make the most benefit to improve health in our communities."

 

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