Photo by Aila Boyd
By Aila Boyd
aboyd@mainstreetnewspapers.com
Dr. Stephanie Harper, the director of the Roanoke City and Alleghany Health Districts, provided the members of the Board of Supervisors with a report on the efforts that are being made by the Botetourt Community Health Steering Committee during last Tuesday’s meeting.
“We’ve been working diligently and are really excited about the progress we’ve made,” Harper said. “Our goal has been to improve the health of the residents of Botetourt.”
In recent months, the committee conducted a series of surveys and held multiple focus group sessions in order to generate community input that informed a report on the health of the county that it’s currently working on. Before seeking community input, the committee gathered secondary data, including education, housing, employment, crime rates, and transportation.
Based on community input, priority categories, including early childhood, child, youth, adult, older adult, family, and community, were established. Prioritization topics were extrapolated out from the categories. The topics included early childhood (school/kindergarten readiness and affordable, quality childcare), child (after school activities and tutoring and oral health), youth (youth risky behaviors and after school activities and tutoring), adult (low health literacy and mental health concerns), older adults (transportation and aging in place), family (obesity and no or low cost physical activities), and community (knowledge of resources and not enough low cost and public events).
The input culminated in the selection of three prioritized health topics: affordable, quality childcare for children between the ages of 0 and 5, youth risky behaviors for those between the ages of 11 and 17, and aging in place for adults 65 years of age and older.
Harper noted that the following were common concerns pertaining to children between the ages of 0 and 5 for those who participated in one of the focus groups: cost of daycare, lack of Head Start/childcare facilities in Botetourt County, oversized classrooms, and lack of transportation.
As for the youth risky behaviors topic, the committee found that 31.9 percent of high school students reported having ever tried cigarette smoking, 62.6 percent of high school students reported having at least one drink of alcohol on one or more days during their lives, 28.1 percent of high school students reported being physically active for a total of 60 minutes each day for the past seven days, and 45.6 percent of high school students reported having had sexual intercourse. All of the above listed information was based on the 2017 Botetourt Youth Risk Behavior Survey.
The committee, based on community input, found that 18.3 percent of respondents feel that the community has affordable home healthcare providers and that 32.8 percent feel that home care services include health, personal care, and housekeeping. As for whether or not respondents needed to make any modifications to their homes to enable them to stay there as they age, 40.4 percent said yes and 52.8 percent said that they would have to make bathroom modifications.
Additionally, the committee found that those who attended focus groups felt that the lack of transportation resources is a detriment to the health of the county.
After establishing a plan to address the three prioritized areas, the committee will then implement its action plan and will monitor and evaluate the results.
Going forward, the committee will hold three action planning sessions throughout the month— September 9 from 1:30-3 p.m. at the Fincastle Library, September 16 from 1:30-3 p.m. at the Fincastle Library, and September 30 from 1:30-3 p.m. at a location that has yet to be determined.
The steering committee has been working on addressing the county’s health concerns since 2017.
