Frederick-area [Maryland] leaders from nonprofits, health care systems and the county health department spent Tuesday defining the most pressing health needs in the community for the next three years.
After hours of presentations and discussion, behavioral health, adverse childhood experiences (ACEs)/infant health, and chronic health were picked as the top health concerns.
The priorities are part of the Local Health Improvement Plan, which the county sets every three years. Volunteers from the community and health-focused organizations are now tasked with setting goals and creating an action plan to help the community address the needs of each priority. Although the priorities are broad, this is where people can bring up specific topics. For the chronic health priority, as an example, the work group might decide to focus solely on hypertension instead of other topics.
Presentations were given on adverse childhood experiences, cancer, HIV, hypertension, infant health, mental health, obesity, sexually transmitted diseases, substance use and suicide. Initially, the three priorities were expected to be selected from those topics.
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After scoring each topic, Dr. Barbara Brookmyer, county health officer, announced that substance abuse, ACEs and mental health scored the highest.
To read the full article written by Heather Mongilio click: HERE
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