MAHONING VALLEY Health commission sets goals

The Valley commission's project will be one of eight across the country.
By WILLIAM K. ALCORN
VINDICATOR HEALTH WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- The newly formed Mahoning Valley Commission on Environmental Health will select one local environmental health issue and develop a plan to solve it as its first goal.
The 26-member commission, which had its first meeting Monday at Youngstown State University's Kilcawley Center, plans to involve all parts of the community to achieve its goals:
UCreate an environmental health profile of Mahoning and Trumbull counties.
U Identify environmental health problems using scientific information and community perceptions.
UPrioritize the Valley's health problems.
USet goals for environmental health improvement, and propose actions to mobilize community resources to achieve them.
Meeting's speaker
The main speaker at Monday's meeting was Capt. John Sarisky, senior environmental health officer for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center in Atlanta, Ga.
Sarisky, a Youngstown native and a 1977 graduate of Woodrow Wilson High School, is a field environmental health specialist, program manager and researcher assigned to the CDC's National Center of Environmental Health, Division of Emergency and Environmental Health Services.
"Environmental health systems touch all of us every day: The water we drink, the food we eat and how we dispose of waste. Public health is all about prevention. If we can figure out how the environment impacts systems -- water, food, air, sewage, solid waste and vector/animal influence -- we can do better intervention," Sarisky said.
With help from the Health Valley Alliance, the local environmental health commission is charged with using a process known as PACE EH (protocol for assessing community excellence in environmental health), to select goals and develop a plan to achieve the goals. The process was developed by the CDC and the National Association of County and City Health Officials. NACCHO provided a $20,000 grant for the 18-month project.
Sarisky said the Mahoning Valley Commission will develop its own plan without influence or interference from the CDC.
One at a time
However, Sarisky suggested that the commission choose one environmental health issue to focus on rather than several, and get the strongest and broadest community support possible. That will give the commission its best chance at succeeding and recommending an intervention that will have an impact on the community.
But, Sarisky said, the CDC doesn't want the commission to stop with its first success. "Once you are done with the first priority, keep going and go on to the next issue," he said.
There is no right or wrong way to achieve the goals, he said. In fact, the CDC hopes the plans of eight demonstration projects across the country will all be different, he said.
The projects are under the auspices of the National Center for Environmental Health, which is part of the CDC, and aim to raise awareness of environmental health and how to deal with related problems. The end purpose, Sarisky said, is getting the community involved and talking about environmental health.
"Each demonstration site is approaching it differently, and that's what we want. We expect to learn more from you than you do from us," Sarisky told the commission.
There are numerous environmental health problems in the Mahoning Valley, such as lead poisoning, water pollution and West Niles virus, said Matthew Stefanak, Mahoning County Health Commissioner and head of the commission's steering committee.
Dealing with these issues is not the exclusive job of environmental health agencies. All branches of government and the general public need to be involved, Stefanak said.