Community Assessment and Outreach

They represented diversity in age, background, experience and interest. Their concerns ranged from the need for more AIDS peer counseling to adequate vision and hearing screening for all DuPage school children to air pollution from wood-burning fireplaces.

They came from different communities and braved autumn snow and cold. There were many voices but their intent was unified and clear: to have a say in identifying the public health needs of their community.

Nearly 150 DuPage residents attended four separate town meetings sponsored by the Health Department in 1997. Meetings were held in Addison, Clarendon Hills, Wheaton and Woodridge. The purpose was to gain input on community public health needs, and inform residents of changes in the Health Department’s organization and programs.

Participants included private citizens, representatives of hospitals, social service organizations, public and parochial schools, municipalities, advocacy groups, colleges, the DuPage County Medical Society, the DuPage County Board, and the Board of Health.

From this diversity came one clear and consistent message:

DuPage residents want assurance of access to quality healthcare for everyone, including the community’s most vulnerable residents.

At each town meeting, Executive Director Dr. David R. McNutt reported on the current direction of the Health Department subsequent to internal reviews, management studies, and strategic planning. Then, Chief Planner Dr. James Hagen reported on the health status of the DuPage community, including causes of death, immunization rates, and data from the most recent behavioral risk factor survey. The meeting was then opened to participants who were asked specific questions. Here is a summary of what they were asked and how they answered:

In your opinion, what are the most significant health issues in your community?

Town meeting participants identified access to healthcare, including medical, dental and psychiatric services (whether public or private) as the most significant health issue. The two main barriers to care were identified as lack of adequate health insurance and lack of transportation.

What can the DuPage County Health Department do to help address these issues?

Town meeting participants responded that the Health Department should take the lead in partnering with other public and private agencies (including DuPage hospitals) to assure access to quality healthcare, identify gaps in service, and avoid duplication. Respondents also said the Health Department needed to provide more community-based health education.

Specific suggestions for improved services included:

• Collaborate with hospitals and agencies which provide senior services to provide aging centers to be coordinated by a gerontologist.
• Lobby for more money from the state to provide mental health services, and ask for the funding to be based on total population, not average income.
• Enable residents to have easy access to community health data gathered and analyzed by the Health Department.
• Expand health promotion activities in public schools.
• Expand mental health services to include assessment and treatment of moderate disorders, especially in adolescents, in order to help prevent serious mental illness in adults.
• Coordinate and help staff after school programs for unsupervised children to help increase self-esteem and curb teen pregnancies and gang involvement.
• Coordinate efforts to raise immunization rates of the county’s two-year-olds.

"These suggestions for improvement and the expansion of our mission are enormous," said Executive Director Dr. David R. McNutt. "The information gathered at the town meetings will be used as the subject of focus groups organized to begin the IPLAN process in 1998."

One Vision: Healthy People, Healthy Communities

The calls for community collaboration heard at the town meetings will not be unheard. The Health Department has already taken a leadership role in establishing a comprehensive public/private forum with the goal of improving the community’s health.

In 1997, the Health Department helped launch the Healthy Communities movement in DuPage. The Board of Health endorsed the Healthy Communities pledge which reads: we take a stand on behalf of our community, and pledge to invest our individual and collective resources through partnerships and communication, with a commitment to measurably improve the health and well-being of our county.

Strategies of the pledge include:

• promoting community ownership of actions to solve quality of life problems,
• improving the functioning and governance of health systems,
• promoting a broader definition of health that includes physical, mental, social, and spiritual dimensions, and
• promoting community ownership of the health and quality of life improvement.

DuPage healthcare and human service leaders, were convened by Central DuPage Health System in March to develop the Healthy Communities Initializing Committee (HCIC).

Members of HCIC represent not only the Health Department and Central DuPage Health System, but also the DuPage County Board, DuPage County Human Services, the DuPage Consortium, the DuPage County Medical Society, Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital, Elmhurst Memorial Hospital, Edward Health Services, Hinsdale Hospital, GlenOaks Hospital, Humana, Inc., the Village of Downers Grove, the East West Corporate Corridor Association, and United Way of Suburban Chicago.

Healthy Communities was publicly launched in DuPage in June through a forum featuring Leland Kaiser, Ph.D., a writer, lecturer and health policy analyst who portrayed healthcare of the future as part of the Healthy Communities movement.

The 1997 work of the HCIC included defining the DuPage movement’s values and purpose, creating the core team, engaging the community and identifying health system and partner resources. This work culminated in a January 1998 design conference with Tyler Norris, Executive Director of the Coalition for Healthier Cities and Communities. The purpose of the conference was to develop a community-based visioning and strategic planning process.

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