National Public Health Week, April 4 – 10, gives us opportunity to celebrate past successes and to address future challenges in our roles of encouraging and providing resources that will lead to healthier lives. Public Health workers are busy continuously preventing situations that may lead to illnesses, protecting citizens from various infectious diseases, and providing education and advice regarding healthy lifestyles.

Every restaurant you visit has been inspected repeatedly to ensure that the food is safe.  In the case of a foodborne illness, public health investigates and provides epidemiological review.  Every child receives vaccines to prevent infectious diseases that once caused severe illness and, at times, death. Diseases such as small pox, polio, measles, mumps, German measles, and even chicken pox have been eliminated or greatly reduced due to the work of public health.

The Ebola epidemic in Africa was contained and eliminated by public health workers who did not have vaccines or specific medications to use, but relied on traditional public health tools for disease containment.  Thanks to public health successes, lives that were once lost are now safer, and we are living longer as a result.

Some of the challenges that our communities face now are created by unhealthy lifestyles. The number of new cases of obesity, diabetes, and hypertension with cardiovascular consequences continues to grow.  Some of the risk factors for these diseases are poor nutrition, lack of proper exercise, and smoking.  Underlying these are the high incidence of poverty and lack of education. Teen pregnancies that result in school dropouts, premature births, and medically complicated young lives are a social problem that is still before us. Increasing rates of diabetes secondary to obesity will continue to claim victims with heart disease and renal failure.  These are preventable with education and motivation in most cases.

We are facing the global epidemic of Zika virus disease that is rampant in 30 countries in the Americas. Public Health is challenged with educating our population about how to prevent this disease and its resulting and damaging neurological malformations in infants without the availability of vaccines or anti-Zika medications. It is predicted that the southeastern states, including Georgia, will be affected.

The control of mosquitoes is going to become vital as warmer weather nears including use of insect repellants, protective clothing, and the “Tip and Toss” action of ridding our homes and yards of any standing water.

Adolescent health is being addressed with recommending healthier meals in school and frequent breaks for exercise. The Women’s, Infant, and Children’s supplemental food program is now providing low fat and whole wheat foods. All schools now have Epipens on site for acute asthmatic and allergic episodes. In association with United Way and other agencies, children are encouraged through their families to read on level by the third grade to be able to read to learn.