The Greene County Public Health Department is inviting everyone to a meeting tonight.
Director Becky Wolf says they are asking for public comments to update their “Community Needs Assessment and Health Improvement Plan.” Each county public health department is required, every five years, to update their assessment with topics and issues that are important to the public.
While some topics may be health-related, Wolf points out that it can be anything you think needs to be addressed. Since the last study was done in 2010, Wolf talks about some of the topics and how they were addressed.
“We had a lot of things identified on there and when we looked back, we probably could’ve done better on some things. Childhood obesity and increasing activity were things that were of concern, (along with) teen pregnancy and increasing breastfeeding rates. Some things we improved on and some we didn’t. So now we have to look back and think, ‘okay well is it still an issue, or do we need to move forward.’”
A community forum will be held this evening from 4 to 5:30pm at the Trinity Lutheran Church in Jefferson. Iowa State University students will be giving information and statistics about the needs and concerns that were identified from the first forum that was held last month. The last forum will be on November 12th.
An online survey is being developed and people can contact Wolf at public health for more information. A link to the most recent assessment can be found by clicking the link below.
http://www.gcmchealth.com/filesimages/documents/CHNA-HIP%20update%20Nov%2024%202014.pdf