Bath Salts and Synthetic Drugs in Central NY

A few weeks ago, I had a research article published in Clinical Infectious Diseases, "Cardiac Infection and Sepsis in Three IV Bath Salts Drug Users".  It detailed three cardiac infections seen in IV bath salts users over the previous summer in Syracuse.  These patients were terribly sick and likely would have died if they had not been seen and treated as quickly as they were.  All of them first were seen in local hospitals and then transferred to the Syracuse hospitals.  Syracuse and the Upstate/Central NY area has had terrible issues with bath salts and other synthetic drugs in the past few years.  There have been some horrifying incidents and families and individuals have been hurt.  Meanwhile, a local "entrepreneur" managed to make a decent fortune off of this epidemic.  He has since pleaded guilty to drug distribution.

Steuben County did not manage to escape this phenomenon.  I hope that, with the shut-downs of the storefronts that were selling these chemicals, the tide has turned.  Health care is about people taking care of others in their community, and, as someone training for a health care career, it is frustrating to see things like the bath salts retailers attempting to make money off these drug sales regardless of the suffering that it imposes on their customers and their communities.

Healthy Families Steuben

This month I am writing on health care teams in Steuben County, and I'd like to focus on an interesting organization.  Healthy Families Steuben is part of the larger Healthy Families NY group of organizations, funded by the state government.  Starting in the pre-natal period and continuing through to age 5 or pre-school, the organization identifies at-risk families and then works to facilitate "positive parent-child interaction and healthy childhood growth and development".  The team there consists of one Program Manager, three Supervisors, one Family Assessment Worker, and nine Family Support Workers for a total of 14 people.  The Family Assessment Worker assesses whether the program is appropriate for the family situation.  Referrals are received from the two local hospitals, Corning and St. James Mercy.  The goal of the intervention is to improve child mortality and the family environment in the client families.  Steuben has been relatively successful in these efforts.  The infant death rate in the county is 2.6/1000, as compared to 5.1/1000 in NYS as a whole.
By working together in teams, whether between different individuals in an existing group or between organizations, such as the Institute for Human Services, which brings together many human services organizations in Steuben and other areas of the Southern Tier, we can make sure that individuals and communities receive the care they need.

County Health Rankings Website

This month I am talking about county-wide health indicators.  There are many different ways to measure this, and based on the Steuben County Health Assessment, I had thought that Steuben performed pretty well.  Steuben has an aging population, which skews certain health measures (such as death rates), but in many areas, such as teen pregnancy, it seemed to be doing pretty well.  As the report noted, "the teenage pregnancy rate from 2005 to 2007 for those 15 to 19 years old is 34.6 and lower than our regional rate of 47.1 and the NYS rate of 58.7."

I have recently been made aware of a website that attempts to comprehensively rank counties by health, County Health Rankings and Roadmaps.  Like many global assessment tools, this weights different measures to come up with a comprehensive measure.  I am a bit wary of these methods, as the weighting can largely determine the outcome.  The US News and World Report college rankings are similarly criticized, as depending on the weighting, the rankings can completely change.  I appreciate this site as it collects and displays commonly used and accepted health measures in a graphically accessible fashion, allowing a quick and convenient comparison between different counties.

However, there seems to be some issues with the data on this site.  For example, it gives a teen birth rate of 30/1000 for Steuben, whereas the County Health Assessment gives a rate of 34, and it gives a NYS rate of 27, versus the report level of 58.7.  I can not say definitively if this is not an issue of reporting period, but it seems off.

One area that certainly needs improvement is smoking.  Steuben is reported with a rate of 28% - I do not know the source of this, but it is very high if it is accurate.