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Home My WebLink About09-2022 September 6 PHAB Minutes Deschutes County Health Services Public Health Advisory Board (PHAB) MINUTES September 6, 2022 12:00 – 1:30pm via Zoom videoconferencing Facilitator Dave Huntley, Chair Staff Coordinator Tom Kuhn, Community Health Manager Scribe Aimee Burroughs Next Meeting October 4, 2022, Zoom Topic and Lead Introductions and Approval of August Meeting Minutes Dave kicked off the meeting noting the day’s agenda and motioning for the August minutes to be approved. Announcements and Unfinished Business Tom gave a Health Services Update. Janice Garceau has been appointed the Health Services Director. She has been with the county since 2015, in a manger position since 2018 and had the most experience for the position. She will need to do some work to get to know Public Health but she has always been a great advocate for her programs and will be a great asset for us. Any questions regarding the appointment can ask David Huntley, Tom Kuhn or Phil Chang. DC will be recruiting for a Public Health director soon. Homeless Minimum care document update – Dave Dave gave an update on the Homeless Minimum Care document and how it has been received. Colleen Thomas at Behavioral Health has felt the document is helpful and using it in her plans; Carissa will also be using it and has other ideas for how it can be used. The document is to be used as a measurement standard; to show where the shortcomings fall and how to start the process for NGOs to write grants to get funding to add to care. Dave said he has shopped the document around to different organizations to use in assistance for grant writing. Rob stated he thought it was a thoughtful document. Behavioral Health Advisory board has invited us to present the document to them so they can determine how they can make use of it as well. Colleen is bringing to the Homeless Coalition Outreach Committee to determine concrete ways to use this; wants to use it as a benchmark to see where organizations are meeting or where there are gaps in care and standards. There was then a larger discussion about Protection Orders and some information on ERPOs and how they are used and how PHAB can be involved in supporting this. Meeting Theme: PH Modernization Climate & Health Program update - Sarah Worthington Climate and Health Coordinator Climate and Health – Developing Regional Work in Central Oregon Sarah gave a presentation on Climate Change and how it effects the health of our County and State. Looking to utilize toolkit to develop climate change plans for other counties. She shared how OHA has developed a climate health profile report that helps assess how it is effecting Oregon residents. Climate change is happening in Oregon; summers are hotter and drier; winters are getting shorter; no change in precipitation. Climate change can affect many different health aspects including mental health, chronic stress, and heat related illness. Another thing Sarah touched on was looking at historical data and when to best send messaging to the communities about climate related health dangers and warnings. Also working out a better way to protect and best serve the vulnerable populations. The key messages from the OHA report are that some communites will be affected more than others by climate change; exposure sensitivity and adaptive capacity determine vulnerability and it turns into a continuous cycle. Focusing on health equity is a top priority of this work. Recognizing that Public Health is good at preparation and works in cooperation and collaboration with others but in order to prvent illness and death we need to partner across all sectors. Questions/Comments Colleen commented that this position is so needed and she is happy it was created. Phil asked what types of education this program will be doing. Sarah answered that it will be supporting more education to help educate people on how to protect against the negative health effects of climate change. Emergency Preparedness Program update Carissa Heinige, Emergency Preparedness Coordinator Carissa started the update by stating that looking at the overall program, general emergency preparedness was put on hold during Covid and we are starting to get back to it. Creating new EOPs, emergency operations plans. Focused on creating event specific plans; started with smoke plans drafted with clear roles and responsibilities because it is sometimes not clear how groups are supposed to collaborate with other programs. Right now this plan is at the testing stage using a tabletop exercise, and she expressed wanting to integrate the Homeless care document into the response effort document. One thing that was made very clear during the exercise was identifying decision making tree and protocol needs to be clearer. Board Members Present: Robert Ross Well Water Safety Program This program is a partnership with environmental health services. There are 170 free well water sampling kits available. There is also a link on the Public Health website to drinking water awareness tips and a PSA that is being played on KTVZ, see the link below https://www.deschutes.org/health/page/drinking-water-awareness-private-wells Community Outreach Carissa also shared that, through a partnership with Community Outreach Team, they were able to purchase emergency preparedness backpack from the Red Cross to assist in Covid outreach efforts. The backpacks contain a lot of basic items to get people started in having a “go bag”. The bags help people understand what they need to be prepared and how they can stay safe. Getting education out into the community and using an equity lens to identify and engage with more vulnerable communities. This team is also focused on relationship building with community based organizations for increased communication events during hazards and emergency events. Questions Phil asked how these different programs in the community communicate with each other. Carissa shared there is almost daily communication and that many different organizations and programs are invited to attend the tabletop exercises and encourage lots of coordination and communication throughout. Low COVID-19 Mortality Rates in Deschutes County Mathew Christensen, Ph.D., Epidemiologist Mathew shared the Covid Case Fatality rate based on reports from OHA. The reports show that Oregon has the 9th lowest mortality in the country and Deschutes County has a very low mortality rate as well, although Benton county has a lower mortality rate. He suggested that OHA should coordinate tests across the State to find out the reasons why some counties are higher/lower than others. Wrap Up Dave said a big thank you to all the presenters today. Tom mentioned that we will be looking to go back to in-person PHAB meetings in the future, and he will be keeping everyone updated on that. Phil mentioned a PHAB and BHAB nexus and wondered if we should have a joint meeting. Tom added that at one point there were joint meetings but PHAB decided to discontinue those; Dr. Ross suggested possibly inviting BHAB to an annual meeting to share common interests and discuss. He will follow up. Adjourn Dave adjourned the meeting at 1:25pm Sharity Ludwig Steve Strang David Huntley Sarah Baron Colleen Sinsky Commissioner Phil Chang Lindsay Atagi Staff Members Present: Tom Kuhn Sarah Worthington Mathew Christensen Carissa Heinige Aimee Burroughs