Public Health conducts youth health survey

     There is a new face assisting inside the Jones County Public Health office in Anamosa. Jess Wiedenhoff was hired in August, and serves as the community health specialist.

     Wiedenhoff works alongside Jenna Lovaas, Public Health director.

     Wiedenhoff’s role involves working with community partners to help connect the public with the services needed. She is hoping to reach out to the schools to provide community health literacy.

     Wiedenhoff has a background as a certified health education specialist. She previously worked in Polk County for a non-profit doing similar work as she’s tackling right now in Jones County.

     She is also working on the Community Needs Assessment, which has to be updated every five years with the State of Iowa. The report is due in mid-January.

     “It’s all about where the county is at in terms of public health,” explained Wiedenhoff. “What needs the most focus? Where do we want to be and how can we get there?”

     The needs assessment that Lovaas worked on prior to now focused on substance abuse, mental health and physical activity. It’s likely the same topics will be included in the new assessment.

     In order to assist in compiling information for the assessment, Public Health intern Kaci Ginn, an Anamosa High School student, took on a project of surveying high school students in Monticello, Anamosa and Midland. Lovaas said having a high school intern made it easy to gather the data they needed from area youth.

     The study was done in January of this year, with students electronically submitting their answers from the survey. Ginn then compiled the data in April.

     The study focuses on physical activity, nutrition, and obesity. Out of 915 high school students in Jones County, Public Health received a 40.8 percent response rate on the survey.

     “That turnout is awesome,” said Lovaas. “You never get numbers like that from other surveys” She said internally, they made it a competition between the schools in the county to see who could submit the most responses.

     Lovaas said what surprised her the most about the results was the large percentage of youth who said they stay pretty physically active, though not necessarily through organized (school) sports. The survey showed that 75.6 percent of the students complete one hour of physical activity a day, four or more days a week.

     Wiedenhoff said Iowa is the only state in the country that does not have statewide standards for physical education (P.E.) classes in public schools.

     For youth obesity rates, Iowa is the 10^th highest state. Wiedenhoff shared that 17 percent of youth ages 10-17 are obese or overweight.

     “We need to send a message that PE is fun for all,” encouraged Lovaas. “We need to make it fun and continue that mentality throughout life.”

     Most of the students who responded and there was nothing impeding them from being physically active.

     Wiedenhoff another aspect of healthy living for youth is drinking plenty of water after being physically active. She said it’s great when school allow water bottles in the classrooms, encouraging kids to drink water on a daily basis, even if they’re not doing so at home.

     Lovaas said aside from using the survey for the needs assessment, the data collected could also be used to obtain grants to help in purchasing equipment for PE classes or to start certain programming.

     Wiedenhoff said aside from the lack of PE standards in Iowa, health class standards are up for review next year. She said states seek input from national health organizations to fill those gaps.

     With two people serving Public Health, Lovaas said they’re able to collaborate more with local organizations such as the Coalition and CPPC, to expand their services.

     “The position was created knowing we needed more resources for the department,” explained Lovaas.

     Adding to their workload, Public Health is also now facilitating the Safe Sleep Program, which used to run under CPPC.

     “It’s all about promoting, maintaining, and improving the community’s knowledge base with community health,” summarized Wiedenhoff.

     With flu season upon us, Public Health encourages everyone to get their flu shot.

     “It benefits you,” said Lovaas. “You may not get as sick or deal with as many complications (if you didn’t get the shot).”

     This year marks the 100^th anniversary of the 1918 flu pandemic, with an estimated 675,000 deaths in the U.S. alone. Last year, many deaths were reported nationwide, associated with the flu as well. Lovaas said while those deaths were just a fraction of those 100 years ago, it’s definitely not unheard of to die due to complications with the flu.

     “Some people have the mentality that it’s just the flu,” she said. “But it’s important to remain healthy and spread the virus to others.”

     For more on Public Health services, visit their website at www.jonescountyiowa.org/public-health or call 319-462-6945.