Putnam Improves Community Health Through Teamwork

By Holly Crocco

Economic stability, mental health services, and food access are top priorities for Putnam County residents, according to data collected through the health department’s recent “Let’s Talk Health” initiative, in which conversations were held at various communities.

As part of the New York State Prevention Agenda, each county is required to submit a Community Health Improvement Plan to the state by June 30, detailing how it will be addressing priority health issues. This local action plan is to include challenges identified, initiatives and interventions planned, and goals for the next six years. 

Over the course of the last five months, the county health department has deployed a multi-level approach to prioritizing community health, beginning with a partner meeting in January where Community Health Assessment findings were presented, and continuing with presentations for local town boards, rotaries, and senior centers, as well as at community events. Topics focused on healthcare access, economic stability, mental health and suicide prevention, food access, childhood preventative diseases, maternal and child health, and alcohol and tobacco use.

According to Supervising Public Health Educator Shanna Siegal, input from these conversations helped the department identify matters that are most important to residents.

“The same themes came up in every setting that we were in, just with a slightly different order in terms of rank,” she said at the County Legislature’s June 10 Health Committee meeting. She said that while it is important for this information to be shared with the state for its Prevention Agenda, she’s more focused on the local impact.

“What is more important to me is that the work that we’re doing to address community health improvement in Putnam County is work that the community wants and that the community needs, and that we can communicate that well,” she said.

To address the county’s challenges, Siegal said the department will be implementing learning opportunities for mental health training and trauma-informed practices. Through the Putnam County Co-Occurring System of Care Coalition, multiple agencies are already dedicated to creating an integrated, person- and family-center system of care to address both mental health and substance-use disorders, and the department looks to strengthen those initiatives.

“This is an area where we feel like we can really make it more meaningful and more robust,” said Siegal. “It’s already very affective. COSOCC has already reached many people throughout the county with adult mental health training and youth mental health first aid training.”

The department is looking for ways to further expand outreach by working with the Office for Senior Resources to promote services that are currently available to older residents, but who may not know about food access, social care networks, and provider networks because they don’t frequent the senior centers.

“So you don’t have to use our senior centers to find out about programs available to you,” she said.

In addition, Siegal said the health department is working toward a more robust collaboration with the Department of Social Services & Mental Health, with cross-training of staff. For example, she said it would be helpful for members of the health department to be trained in child care subsidies and other matters so they can identify persons in need of support and make referrals.

“We meet a lot of members of the community who aren’t going to identify as ‘in need of services,’ but we should be able to direct people to care,” she said.

In addition, the department is looking to get creative with sources of funding.

“We have a lot of money in JUUL settlement funds,” said Siegal, referring to money that was won by New York State and divided amongst counties from two major court cases regarding manufacturers’ roles in the vaping epidemic and opioid crisis.

“I’m excited about the prospect of braiding together the messages and the opportunities to connect people to nutritious food sources, but if we integrate smoking and vaping cessation or education, and prevention or risk reduction into what we’re doing with those folks to food sources, we can use JUUL settlement money to do that,” she said.

Another area the department looks to address is the steep drop off in HPV vaccination rates, by working with providers to help raise awareness, educate the community, and address patient barriers.

Legislator Nancy Montgomery, D-Philipstown, chairwoman of the Health Committee, noted that some of the priorities discussed – such as suicide prevention and food insecurity – are frequently being addressed by the Legislature.  

“What I love about plans like this is, this is what we use when we go to the state or the federal government,” she said. “This is how they determine their budgets and what’s going to be allocated for what.”

The information is expected to be sent to the state this week.