Oswego, A Can Do County!

To the Editor:
Oswego County’s health behavior ranking has improved significantly according to data recently released in the annual National County Health Rankings of 2016 by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute.

The County Health Rankings, now in their seventh year, provide a snapshot of the overall health of every county across the United States.

The rankings include a range of factors that influence health, such as obesity and smoking, children in poverty, high school graduation rates, employment, housing, and access to parks.

Although the data for the past several years reflects poor choices by county residents (including smoking, lack of physical activity or excessive drinking), the latest report shows that people across the county are working to improve health behaviors.

We are making progress!

The county adult smoking rate, the adult obesity rate, and other important indicators all showed marked improvement in 2016. These and other changes lifted our county’s ranking up from the last place in the state.

Institutions, organizations, and individuals across Oswego County are striving to improve the community’s health. All efforts, big or small, direct or indirect, add up and are now showing a collective impact on the county’s health ranking.

–    Most of the independent pharmacies in the county stopped selling tobacco products many years ago.
–    Over the past three years, high school seniors in the New Vision program’s Health Career Track surveyed local communities and developed projects to address obesity, poor nutrition, tobacco, and illegal drug use.
–    Pregnant women and mothers with infants and young children participated in the “Smoke Free for My Baby and Me Program.” These women brought smoking cessation messages to many families and their partners.
–    Catholic Charities of Oswego banned smoking on their properties and the cities of Oswego and Fulton banned smoking in public parks and trails.
–    Residents in different towns, villages, and cities conscientiously increased physical activities, indoor and outdoor. Cities, villages, and towns increased maintenance of existing walking/hiking trails and set up new ones. Two cities and some villages are coordinating grassroots efforts to create community programs that spread health messages and encourage physical activities.
–    Students in the two “Healthy Highway” pilot project elementary schools learned and practiced healthy eating and exercises. Assessments of student’s knowledge and behavior changes before and after the project showed these children gained nutrition knowledge and increased healthy behaviors as a result of the project. Anecdotally, many of these school children spread healthy nutrition information and physical exercise messages to their families.

All in all, these and many more efforts by people and businesses in the county — nonprofit, for-profit, faith-based, government, school districts, higher education, healthcare, and social services– have led to improvement in the county’s health behavior ranking.

Let’s continue to build momentum and keep working hard to make further improvements. To make community health improvement is not a sprint but a marathon, which requires both strength and perseverance.

The Community Health and Poverty Reduction Task Force, a steering committee set up by the County Legislature last year, insightfully named its website: “www.oc2030.org” – Oswego County, by the Year 2030, will fundamentally elevate its residents’ overall economic and health well-being.

This vision provides the perseverance we need.

Working together, Oswego County can do it!

Jiancheng Huang
Director of Public Health
Oswego County Health Department

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