Health department hears about local health challenges

By Oliver Lazenby

At a listening session at the Blaine Public Library on September 20, Whatcom County Health Department staff presented health data about Blaine, Birch Bay and Point Roberts and asked community members whether the county’s ideas about the community’s health match reality.

The listening session will inform the health department’s “community description” of Blaine, Birch Bay and Point Roberts. The county began publishing a countywide health assessment in 2012, and for the first time it’s adding information specific to communities within the county.

“One thing we heard when we did the first assessment was that that is important, but not enough,” said Katie Stanford, health department assessment specialist. “We really needed to take a deeper dive into individual communities.”

The countywide Community Health Assessment was published this summer, and the localized description of Blaine, Birch Bay and Point Roberts should come out before the end of the year, county staff said. The assessment looks at health and factors that contribute to health in four main categories – physical environment, health care, health behaviors and social and economic factors.

The health department’s preliminary data found that on average, people in Blaine, Birch Bay and Point Roberts, are significantly older than the rest of the county, with a median age of 48.2, compared to 36.8 for the entire county.

Blaine, Birch Bay and Point Roberts compare favorably to the county average in some areas – a higher median household income and fewer premature deaths, for example – and not so well in others; the infant mortality rate is higher than the county average and more children are eligible for free and reduced lunch programs.

The county’s draft community description for Blaine, Birch Bay and Point Roberts is online at bit.ly/2zw6tM9. In the statistical information, “Blaine” refers to the area within the Blaine school district, which includes Birch Bay and Point Roberts. The county health department is collecting feedback on its draft until October 25 at bit.ly/2Nyn0I9.

The draft plan begins with an overview of the area that meeting attendees said leaves out two local issues – access to health care and transportation. Both a lack of health care providers and difficulty getting to Bellingham, a hub of services for the county, are challenges for people in Blaine. Health department staff also heard that getting to the Department of Veterans Affairs in Mount Vernon, 50 miles from Blaine, is a challenge for many veterans.

“It’s exactly this type of information that the listening sessions were designed to bring to light, and we’ll be incorporating this data into the community views section of the report,” said Melissa Morin, health department communications specialist, in an email.