County reviews public health numbers, new health boxes

At the Public Safety Committee’s November meeting, Public Health Specialist Dawn Adams provided updated statistics about the county’s activity in the month of October.

The county had 706 communicable disease control encounters, which included the distribution of COVID home tests, the administration of tuberculosis tests and vaccinations. The county reported 242 chronic disease and injury prevention encounters, including the use of NARCAN, fentanyl test strips and people who used the county’s Credible Minds website. The county also had four environmental public health encounters (including human health investigations) and 69 maternal, child and family health encounters (reminder letters and infant outreach attempts).

Communicable diseases were down in October, with four hospitalizations for COVID. Tick-born diseases were higher than expected.

Adams also told the committee that two of the one-stop health boxes were installed, with two more coming in the future.

The health boxes, which have been described as vending machines containing a variety of safety supplies, are located at the Ferryville Fire Department and the Ocooch Mountain Rescue in Gays Mills.

“It’s all about harm reduction — lots of good stuff in those machines,” Adams said. “Fentanyl test strips, personal hygiene items, COVID tests, basic first aid kits, gun locks, and we plan to get some more things in there.”

The county will install two more health boxes: one at the administrative building in Prairie du Chien and the other in Wauzeka.

There is no specific timeframe for the two remaining installations.

Other announcements included:

• The county had free radon test kits available at the administrative building.

• The county is selling suicide awareness t-shirts and is pushing for more awareness at public events, especially in tandem with school districts.