Question

Analyze your state, county, or city health department's website (e.g., dhhs.gov). A Google search of your city’s “health profile" may also yield results. Select another state, county, or city and visit their health department's website. Compare and contrast what information you learned from your search. How does your selected health profile compare to your state, county, or city? Provide related examples based on the communities searched

Answer 1

The Tennessee Department of Health website reveals a lot of information regarding the health status of the people. While most of the data is available on the website, I was particularly interested in the highlighted public advisory on the home page. It is an updated one and informs the public on the issue of electronic cigarettes, vapes, among other Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems (ENDS). The advisory notes the widespread use of Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems especially among young people as smoking cessation means especially among the youth. Furthermore, it informs the public on the dangers of using the form of addiction recovery while putting an emphasis on a clear measurable way to determine their efficacy. The advisory warns users to cease using vapes and other ENDS to stop using them because they are less likely to stop smoking than when they use non-ENDS products. The information is important because as a healthcare enthusiast I can use it to relay the information to others from a professional point of view.

The website also gives interesting statistics on premature deaths through the Years of Potential Life Lost (YPLL) report. The data shows the leading cause of premature death by county, which makes it easy for the respective regions and the State to come up with combative measures to reduce the death rates. In Tennessee, Accident and Adverse events, heart diseases, and malignant neoplasms are among the leading causes of death in the dataset. In most counties, the three conditions contribute about 60% of the totals of premature deaths. Interesting, suicide is among the top 6 leading contributor to the Year of Potential Life Loss. In my county, Davidson, it ranks sixth with the number of years lost through it totaling to 2349 resulting from 83 deaths. Another condition, chronic lower respiratory disease, causes 136 deaths but contributes to 1598 of the Years of Potential Life Loss. It shows that while suicide rates may be lower, youngpeople commit suicide more than the elderly, thereby increasing the years of potential life lost through the vice.

I compared the Tennessee website to Massachusetts Department of Health. While the former only has on advisory notice on the homepage, the latter has 2. The first one is the vaping public health emergency guideline that explicitly states that e-cigarettes including vapes use have led to an outbreak of severe lung disease. It also informs the public on the epidemic involving young men and the increased use of electronic cigarettes, a deduction that is contained in a similar advisory on the Tennessee website. However, the notice on the Massachusetts health department online platform is more comprehensive in structure and targets different audiences and calls call for action from different players. For example, it classifies the information for easy access by players such as local boards of health, providers, retailers and users of vapes and similar products with best practices to conform to the order. The second notice on the website is in regard to Eastern Equine Encephalitis (EEE), which is a rare condition spread through mosquito bites. The illness has been on the rise and the advisory is meant to educate the public on its facts, how to avoid it, and warn the people from the high-risk areas.

The state of Massachusetts does not have easily accessible information on the Years of Potential Life Lost (YPLL) on its website. However, a custom search on the internet has the information even though it is not as comprehensive as the one detailed in the Tennessee website. The YPLL rate is Massachusetts is classified in states and is based on race instead of health conditions as in Tennessee. Notably, the Black racial group has the highest years of potential life lost as compared to the other two groups, Whites and Hispanic. The trend is visible for all the counties except Hampshire because the number of blacks in the region is significantly lower in comparison to the other two groups.