This marks National Public Health Week, and the 2023 theme is “Centering and Celebrating Cultures in Health,” said Barton County Health Director Karen Winkelman, speaking to County Commission Wednesday morning.
“Today I come before you ask for your recognition of the contributions of public health across the nation,” Winkelman said, crediting her Barton County Health Department. “Public Health is what we all do together as residents and communities to ensure the conditions necessary in which all can be healthy.”
In recognition of the observance, the commission adopted a proclamation thanking staff and partners who “work to help citizens better understand preventive habits to live longer, healthier lives.”
COVID-19 showed us the importance of having a local public health system with strong infrastructure, Winkelman said. “While navigating through a ‘first’ pandemic for all of us, locally we continued to provide core essential public health services without disruption.”
Words that came to mind to describe the actions of her staff and what she witnessed during that uncertain period include “adaptation, resiliency, support, passion, collaboration, stamina, collectively, endurance. The list could go on and on.”
Moving forward, “this is an exciting opportunity to focus on innovation and transformation,” she said. “With that said, using ‘health equity’ and ‘social determinants of health’ as guiding principles, every person and every organization can take shared accountability to ensure the conditions in which everyone can be healthy regardless of race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, geography, or income level.”
She commended her staff on the work that each member contributes to the community. “I would also like to thank our local, county and state partners, the Board of County Commissioners who also function as the Board of Health and my Barton County Health Advisory Board. It has been an honor to serve the communities of Barton County.”
In recognition of the observance, the commission adopted the proclamation thanking staff and partners who “work to help citizens better understand preventive habits to live longer, healthier lives.”
The proclamation includes these startling statistics:
• U.S. life expectancy dropped from 2014 to 2017 in the longest sustained decline since the Great Recession, and only in 2018 began to increase again.
• U.S. life expectancy then dropped again in 2020 and 2021 by a full year, which is the largest drop in life expectancy since 1943.
“Preventable risk factors such as physical inactivity, poor nutrition, tobacco use and excessive alcohol use are leading causes of chronic disease,” it reads. Six in 10 U.S. adults have a chronic disease and four in 10 have two or more, leading to seven of every 10 deaths annually being caused by chronic disease in the United States.
“The commission urges all citizens to be mindful of their own health and to practice a healthy lifestyle,” it notes.
