Subscribe to the RSS feed.Guest Perspective: Lincoln County Commissioner Bill Hall
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CHP | Posted on: May 12th, 2009
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Economic Issues •
Policies and Laws •
Public Health
The goal of the Community Health Priorities project is to engage people all over the state to articulate a vision of a healthier life for everyone, and help develop policies that can achieve that vision. As part of this effort, we welcome guest authors to submit pieces about improving the public’s health in one way or another. This perspective was written by Lincoln County Commissioner Bill Hall, vice chair of the Human Services Steering Committee of the Association of Oregon Counties.
The current concern over the possible swine flu pandemic has focused attention on public health departments across Oregon and across the nation. Right now, a lot of people are aware of public health, but that’s not always the case. Most of the time, local public health is the invisible army that keeps people safe. It is important that this army has the staff and resources to address outbreaks as they occur. I’m here today to talk about a path to accomplish this important goal.
I serve as vice chair of the Human Services Steering Committee of the Association of Oregon Counties. During the interim the committee developed the Strategy for the Well-Being of All Oregonians. This strategy put forward the proven tactics that work to keep people safe, and healthy. One of the areas that we addressed was public health – specifically:
1) Maintaining county public health services, including the local public health infrastructure and public health home visiting;
2) Expanding tobacco prevention and education programs; and
3) implementing statewide obesity prevention strategies for the prevention and control of chronic diseases.
Increasing the tobacco tax and dedicating revenue to public health prevention efforts can meet all of these goals.
County Commissioners have joined with their local public health officials in supporting an increase in the tobacco tax to support local public health departments.
A capacity assessment of local public health infrastructure found a 43% gap in local government’s ability to provide comprehensive public health.
Community health planning, policy development, evaluation and quality assurance have less than 50% capacity due to lack of funding for such activities. These functions are critical to identifying health issues affecting communities and effectiveness of efforts to address them.
As Oregon looks forward to health care reform population-based public health prevention strategies can help defray costs that would be borne by the medical community.
Oregon currently ranks 47th in the nation for public health funding.
Because of all of these reasons, and for the health and well-being of our communities we should increase the tobacco tax and dedicate some funding for public health and proven prevention strategies.
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This speech was presented at the Tobacco-Free Lobby Day in Salem on April 30, 2009. Read coverage of event in the Statesman-Journal.
Visit Commissioner Hall’s web page here.
We’d like to know what you think: Add your voice to this Conversation in the comments section.
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