The Board of Health met 11/08/2023. One of the information items they received was the Health Department’s third quarter report.
I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download.
Health Officer Charles Sepers touched on a number of items from the report.
- STD rates were down overall in 2023 as compared to 2022; however they were seeing a pretty dramatic increase in STDs in the 18 and under group.
- Elevated lead levels had almost doubled from 2022 to 2023. This was because the blood lead reference value had been decreased from 5 to 3.5 so people who previously would not have been flagged have now been flagged.
- The number of STD tests given had increased, but the number of clients served had not increased which meant that they were catching patients after symptoms had already gone through.
- Home maternal, child, and family health visits in 2023 were about 1/3 of the number of visits that had been conducted in 2022. These visits were prompted by referrals, so the decrease in visits was because referrals were not happening. The Health Department was looking into that to try to understand why referrals were not happening.
- Environmental Health inspections were up in 2023 which was the result of having more staff available to conduct those inspections.
- Weights and Measures inspections were similar to what they were in 2023, but now that they had added Greenville to the municipalities in their Weights and Measures consortium, they expected those to tick up a bit.
- A Health Department staff member had organized two trainings. One was “Stop the Bleed”. Torniquet kits had been placed throughout city buildings and city staff had received training to use it. They also conducted a Back To Basics tabletop exercise that was based around some kind of health emergency involving Cookie Monster. They chose a novel topic for the table top exercise because they believed it prompted people to engage and think about the situation.
Although not listed on the report, Health Officer Sepers said that, per the discussion the Board of Health had had regarding the mental health awareness resolution, he had met with Beth Clay of NEW Mental Health and was working on bringing forward programming forward to the Board of Health.
Board member Deborah Werth asked about the apparent increase in latent TB cases on the third quarter report (1 in 2022 versus 13 in 2023). Health Officer Sepers responded, “[W]e’re still in line with what we saw last year, it’s just that given the cyclical nature of when folks might, you know, arrive and come into the system, it’s heavy in Q3, but it’s not heavy over the year. So, at any given point in time, we can have 15 latent TBs, but that’s also really kind of locked by the various TB drugs that that that are difficult to get at this point. If we were able to have drugs to treat all of the latent TB, it would actually be much higher, and that’s one of the things that we’re seeing now is that drug availability opens up a little bit. So, you’re probably seeing a little bit more in this in this Q3 section as those drugs come online. But still about the same as we look at the year to date, very similar that way.”
Board chairperson Cathy Spears asked if they had identified specific sources of lead exposure or what is caused by water intake. Health Officer Sepers said that they had found that typically there was some environmental exposure such as lead paint or lead in the soil.
Regarding the possibility of lead exposure coming through old lead water lines, he said that they had tested water sources in 19 Appleton early childhood centers but did not find any lead laterals. Compared to the data from a city like Madison and other communities, that was very positive. He attributed Appleton’s good score on that to the efforts that had been taken over the years to replace the city’s lead laterals lines.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1119166&GUID=EE92AD99-1AD2-4819-8F3B-76EC09B4895C
Be the first to reply