The departure of the head of the St. Clair County Health Department this month sheds new light on an old question about the agency’s remaining staff.
How successful are they in responding to the coronavirus?
Local health officials said they believe the latest assessment of the community health needs of St. Clair County community gives early credibility to the way they have made decisions all along – including the issuance of two conflicting COVID orders over the past year.
“This has always been our last question,” said Dr. Annette Mercatante, a former county medical officer. “We go through the risks, the benefits, blah, blah, and then what is the right thing to do?”
Mercatante, whose contract expired this month, and the health ministry have been targeted for criticism and repulsion by a group of angry residents, especially parents with school children, who opposed the 2002 temporary school mask mandate and the quarantine order. in 2021
However, health officials last week said they believed they had heard from a vocal minority who did not agree with the response measures. Public Information Officer Aliz Nichols said the data collected in the community health needs assessment or the CHNA report released this spring helped confirm it.
“For the most part, people followed the guidelines of the local health department and believed it helped prevent it,” she said on Tuesday.
“Not to say we’ve always been right,” Mercatante said. But she later added: “We were the last barrier.”
What does CHNA say about COVID?
The CHNA, commissioned in 2021, covers telephone surveys of 1,000 adults in St. Clair County, written responses from 332 residents in underserved communities, 30 online surveys by “key informants” working in healthcare, and five in-depth interviews with “ key stakeholders, ”including directors of hospitals and clinics.
The district health department began sharing CHNA results in May.
Specifically for COVID-19, the report covers vaccination questions, how respondents received information about the virus, how local preparedness levels were obtained, and more.
For example, three out of 10 adults in the general population, compared with six out of 10 in underserved areas, reported that their lives were worse due to the pandemic.
When asked whether the measures taken in response to COVID were effective, 79.1% of adult respondents answered “yes”. Referring to the mitigation steps recommended by the health department, such as washing or disinfecting hands, wearing a mask and a distance of six feet, approximately 96.1%, 84.6% and 78.7% of responding adults, respectively, reported that they follow this guide.
Only 20.9% believe that the measures taken in response did not contribute to combating the spread of COVID.
“And we were also rated as the third most trusted (established figure or agency) in the community, so the face doctor, the CDC and then we,” Mercatante said. “So, in most cases, people trust us and believe in what we do.
These data from trusted sources refer to adults with insufficient care, as 30.8% indicated the health department. About 62.3% and 37.7% indicated their own health care providers and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 people have been cited as the third leading cause of death in St. Clair County after heart disease and cancer.
These were some of these potential results that health officials cited as they recalled weighing the January order for school masks with Mercatante.
“Everything that happened, everything we talked about, didn’t come out of nowhere,” said Diane Lois, the department’s emergency preparedness coordinator.
“A lot of these decisions were left to the locals because I didn’t think there was a great state-level leadership,” said Greg Brown, the department’s administrator. “There were serious omissions in the information at the beginning, coming from the governor’s office through the state to us. We had to make the best decisions we could at the local level, and we did. “
Contact Jackie Smith at (810) 989-6270 or [email protected] Follow her on Twitter @ Jackie20Smith.