Binge drinking, youth vaping, and sexually transmitted infections are among Washoe County’s top community health concerns following the 2024 County Health Rankings and Roadmaps Report released Wednesday.
Notwithstanding, the county ranks third in the state for health outcomes and factors. Dr. John Packham, policy director for the Nevada Public Health Association, said that the region had some notable successes, but community leaders still have their work cut out for them.
“We’re improving again in life expectancy and estimates of premature death and disability,” he said, adding, “We’ve also made progress in areas like smoking. And we got the best ranking on adult obesity in the state right now, which is good.”
Those successes stand in stark contrast with several public health risks, according to Packham and Kevin Dick, district health officer for Northern Nevada Public Health.
“We really need for people to get back to safe sex,” Dick said.
According to NNPH, 22 babies born in Washoe County had congenital syphilis in 2023, up from 13 cases in 2022.
Dick is also concerned that the data doesn’t account for youth vaping.
“We really don’t know what the long-term impacts of that are going to be, so that’s quite concerning to us,” he said.
And across the board, Washoe County has higher binge drinking rates than elsewhere in Nevada.
“Those translate into higher-than-average impaired, drunk driving rates,” Packham said.
The question for the county is what will it take to convince residents to change personal, day-to-day behaviors, like sexual and drinking habits, to push the needle in the right direction? Dick said the data itself might have the answer.
“Across the country, when they’re looking at how healthy communities are, they see that more civic engagement means a healthier community,” Dick said. “Better, reliable sources of information, local news, libraries, broadband internet. If people just get connected and engaged with our community, and keep up with the news about what’s going on, that could have a positive health impact.”
The nonprofit Truckee Meadows Tomorrow is supporting that mission. After the health presentation, executive director Kylie Rowe announced the launch of TMT’s new community health data dashboard, a tool that allows anyone to look at up-to-date local health metrics.
“We really want to make sure that people who are making decisions have access to this, so that when they’re deciding about funding or developing strategy in the future, that they’re really paying attention to what are the biggest needs in the community,” she said.
Dick hopes as people engage with the numbers, they understand how their actions impact the larger picture of community public health.
He said, “What they do day in and day out, it all adds up.”
