East Stark News

The Stark County Health Department partnered with Newsymom earlier this year to launch the Striving Toward a Healthier Community campaign to raise awareness about a variety of public health programs and services. The fourth video, in a 12 video installment, focuses on immunization and tuberculosis (TB) services offered by the health department. The video entitled, Keep Stark Healthy, reminds residents of keeping up to date with immunizations and testing for TB as needed. The video can be found on the health department’s YouTube Channel or at www.starkhealth.org.

“We want to make the community aware of other communicable diseases and prevention measures in addition to COVID,” said Nursing Services Unit Manager Allison DeVore, RN, BSN “Our hope for this campaign is for the community to have accurate and easy to understand information at their fingertips. The health and well-being of our community is important to us.”

The health department keeps track of communicable diseases like Hepatitis A and sexually transmitted diseases like syphilis, enteric illnesses like salmonella, tick born disease, mosquito borne disease, tuberculosis, legionella and meningococcal disease among many others.  It is important to know how these diseases spread and precautions that should be taken as preventative measures. These are some important ways of how communicable diseases can spread:

• Direct contact with a sick person,
• Breathing in airborne viruses and bacteria,
• Contact with blood and other body fluids,
• Contact with a contaminated surface or object,
• Ingesting infected food or water,
• Bites from insects or animals that can transmit disease.

Residents should be sure to practice measures like handwashing, cooking and storing food properly, keeping clean/safe water and other interventions like vaccines offered by the health department. Vaccination clinics are offered by the department for both children and adults at the health department and in the community. There were over 73,000 vaccines administered in 2021 including COVID-19. This year, over 500 vaccines (without COVID-19 vaccines) have been administered. Residents are welcome to schedule any vaccinations with the health department. Clinic locations and vaccines offered can be found at www.StarkHealth.org. Residents should call 330.493.9914 for an appointment. The Stark County Health Department does accept Ohio Medicaid plans and most private insurance plans. Nursing Services does offer a sliding fee scale for payment of services and utilizes patient assistance programs to offset the cost of some services.

“It is important for adults and children to be up to date with their vaccinations to keep their body’s protected against vaccine preventable illnesses,” said Uhler. “Remember, getting vaccinated will keep Stark healthy.”

The health department is also the Tuberculosis registrar for Stark county. A record file is maintained at our health department which records active and or inactive TB cases, contacts, suspects, and positive reactors.  TB can be spread by coughing, sneezing, laughing or singing. If you need a Tuberculosis Skin Test, they are offered every Tuesday at the health department on a walk-in basis and read 48 hours later on Thursdays. The health department administered 1,346 TB skin tests since 2018.

“We monitor active TB cases and suspects, conduct contact investigations, and other follow up with TB in Stark County,” said Uhler. “This process entails coordination care with infectious disease, collecting specimens, doing contact investigations, and following up with active cases.”

Original source can be found here.