Welcome 2010

Greetings,

2009 has been an exciting year for the Tulare County Department of Public Health. Despite the many social and economic challenges that we have experienced as a department, agency, State, and Nation, we are proud of the advances and preventive activities that have taken place in Tulare County.

In 2009 Tulare County Department of Public Health staff have:

  • As always, the Communicable Disease Control and Prevention Units were at the forefront of disease investigation especially during the initial spring H1N1 outbreaks. To support our Communicable Disease Prevention units or surveillance activities have expanded to include a new public health “real-time” hospital surveillance system and a web-based school absentee surveillance system;
  • The Environmental Health Division works diligently to protect the environment (water, air, and soil), by building a community infrastructure, enforcing environmental laws, and preventing the disposal of household hazardous waste in landfills. Additionally, they continue to ensure retail food safety in the prevention of food-related illness;
  • Despite several reductions, the Health Operations continues to maintain two community clinics and numerous community programs that provide primary, specialty and preventative health care to the residents of Tulare County regardless of their ability to pay. Health Operations Pharmacy generously assisted in the warehouse stockpile of Tamiflu accessible to local physicians.
  • The Maternal, Child & Adolescent Health (MCAH) Division, completed its 2010-2014 needs assessment that will guide MCAH activities in the upcoming years. They have secured funding to implement two new initiatives, a Nurse-Family Partnership home visitation program which will provide a limited number of first time mothers with public health nurse home visits from pregnancy until age two, and a Perinatal Wellness Program (PWP) that will promote awareness of perinatal mood and anxiety disorders as well as encourage screening and offer mental health referral services for positive screenings. This year the WIC program received its first major food change since 1974 that will expand the diversity of wholesome and nutritious foods offered to participants. Local WIC continues its outreach activities working with Farmer’s markets, successfully supporting three market sites and planning to expand to another next year;
  • Public Health Emergency Preparedness (PHEP) mobilized a Departmental Operations Center (DOC) to coordinate local and State action during the Spring H1N1 outbreak. This fall PHEP has administered over 11,000 H1N1 vaccine doses in over 17 different schools;
  • The Tulare County Public Health Laboratory (TCPHL) has continued to provide microbiology service to clinical laboratories in Tulare County. TCPHL continues to serve as the reference laboratory for the Laboratory Response Network (LRN) catchment Area of Kern, Kings, and Tulare Counties and during the Spring H1N1 outbreak was one of the only laboratories Statewide providing H1N1 subtyping.
  • As a Department our activities have been both large and small. We have launched a Public Health Department Website. Continuing our commitment to community partnership and engagement we have had new developments for both our suicide prevention and chronic disease prevention activities. Our Suicide Prevention taskforce has now been formalized as a coalition with an advisory board and representatives from different sectors of the community. An expanded Tulare County Healthy For Life is a new phase of our county wide obesity and chronic disease prevention activities. The work of this coalition is the foundation of the application for a CDC’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009- Communities Putting Prevention to Work. As a department we have also initiated a Strategic Planning Assessment Process, adopted a departmental mission Statement along with Departmental Core Values, completed an internal Public Health performance assessment, and are now planning for a countywide health survey.

As we look back over our progress in 2009, we realize that our success would not have been possible without the partners, experts, practitioners, and leaders at the state and local levels who have helped guide and support the public health activities for our County. Because of everyone’s involvement, our Public Health Department can continue to offer disease prevention activities and messages. We look forward to working in partnership with you in 2010 as we continue to build and strengthen our Public Health System in Tulare County.

Wishing you and yours a Healthy and Safe New Year!


Karen Haught, Health Officer