The emergence of the swine flu offers the perfect example of the core responsibility of public health in Snohomish County.
Much of the communicable disease control by the health district, and national public health, has been so successful that it has made itself entirely invisible to the people it serves. Most of us in the United States don't know what it is like to live with the threat of deadly infectious disease. Public health has made that possible in our lifetimes. This is also why so many of us don't know what it would be like not to have public health silently fighting so many communicable diseases.
While the Snohomish Health District has been asking the community to offer direction to its Board of Health, the economy seriously threatens to reduce and dismantle efforts. The officials making critical decisions about public health are asking to be informed.
The work of environmental health and communicable disease control has not had much of a voice because it seems like such a stable force that protects our environment. It is, however, susceptible to competing priorities for adequate funding. The prevention of obesity and tobacco use, for example, has not been a traditional role for public health, but has also had most of our attention because infectious disease has been so well controlled over the last few years.
Health departments hold a high-powered staff to quickly respond to outbreaks and new disease and that is in danger of reduction at a very critical time. The work of public health professionals is so specialized that no one else in our county is available to provide disease intervention for steady disease burdens and during outbreaks.
The health district is looking at cutting costs where they are not seeing major needs. The rates for many communicable diseases tend to decrease when money increases and then the rates rise when money is reduced after success. I am hoping for the Snohomish Health District to stay vigilant in protecting the community with its most basic responsibility during an economic downturn.
Its most basic responsibility is maintaining the health of residents, which it has been doing all along. The swine flu outbreak is one example of the need to maintain programs that intervene in environmental and infectious disease threats. My hope for Snohomish County communities is that they will not lose core public health services that provide the most critical foundation for health.
