July 26, 2006
News media calls to David Hass at (630) 682-7979, ext. 7374

DuPage County Health Department granted Certification for five years from state health department

Board of Health President Kurzawa: “This reaffirms our commitment to county health’

The DuPage County Health Department has been granted certification for five more years from the Illinois Department of Public Health. As a certified local health department, the DuPage health department is eligible for state Local Health Protection Grants.

Every five years the health department completes an extensive Community Needs Assessment and Health Plan called IPLAN (Illinois Project for Local Assessment of Needs.) The IPLAN document is submitted to the state health department’s Office of Policy, Planning and Statistics for review.

“The approval of IPLAN reaffirms the health department’s commitment to serving the needs of DuPage County residents,” said Linda Kurzawa, president of the DuPage County Board of Health. Kurzawa said the health department has already started to address critical local health issues, such as obesity, by promoting exercise and walking programs for residents and health department employees.

Kurzawa, also a District 6 member of the DuPage County Board, said the board of health has supported smoking bans on the health department campus, as well as no-smoking ordinances in DuPage County communities.

She congratulated health department employees for again achieving this certification.

The health department used MAPP, the most current national planning tool, to complete four detailed assessments. Those included a traditional community health status assessment, an assessment of community themes and strengths, an assessment of the major forces affecting health in the county and an assessment of the community health system to provide essential public health services.

The IPLAN process, guided by a 17-member steering committee of community health professionals, resulted in a Community Health Plan for county residents.

The steering committee identified and prioritized ten “Strategic Health Issues” for DuPage County. The top three issues submitted to the state health department as IPLAN priorities are: • Address the issue of obesity and overweight among county residents. • Develop the capacity to meet the mental health needs of county residents. • Assure access to essential health services for low-income uninsured county resident

The community health plan also contains objectives and strategies for addressing the top three priorities. The 2010 objective for the overweight and obesity priority is to increase to 60 percent the proportion of DuPage County residents who are at a healthy weight. For mental health the objective is to increase to 30 percent the proportion of DuPage County adults and children with mental health problems who receive treatment. The third IPLAN priority has a five-year written objective to provide access to essential health services to 30,000 low-income residents in DuPage County.

Leading and convening the IPLAN process is the role of the local health department. However, it is increasingly clear that the issues raised by IPLAN go well beyond the scope and capacity of the local public health department. These issues require the collective input of the broader community health system if the goal of improved health status is to be achieved.

The DuPage County IPLAN documents can be viewed and downloaded from www.dupagehealth.org/iplan2010

“We promote health, prevent illness, and provide quality service”