Community Theater
Dear Editor: I am compelled to write about two recent art events here in Sitka. I speak of the recent play ‘‘Parfumerie’’ brought to you by the community theater group, which I found to be outstanding. The direction, the actors, the set, the special effects, the backstage crew all in synch to bring a great story in a great facility to Sitkans.
Then the recent Sitka version of the ‘‘Wait Wait...Don’t Tell Me’’ radio quiz show. It too was outstanding, a writing crew of wonderful local talent, a cast as about as simpatico as I have ever seen, a crew that worked it just right, and a grand band: Belly Meat.
One of the things that struck me in both shows is the Sitka audiences. You are so supportive, so willing to try new things, so enthusiastic, and so willing to enjoy really fun entertainment. The hard work that goes into these shows, both on and behind the stage, and the appreciation by the audiences is also part of the fun of these shows.
Thank you for showing up and hope to see you at more events all around our great town. Thank you.
Jeff Budd, Sitka
Health Rankings
Dear Editor: The fifth edition of the County Health Rankings, released this March 2014, continues to prove that where we live matters to our health.
The County Health Rankings, first released in 2010, is a collaboration between the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute. They compile data from a number of reliable sources so that each state can see how its counties compare on 29 factors that impact health.
In Alaska, 23 regions were looked at. Juneau had the highest overall score followed by Sitka (2) and Kodiak (3). Looking at Sitka’s data, it’s easy to see that we have some significant strengths to continue to build on.
Exercise is medicine and Sitka’s score for the “Percent of the population with adequate access to locations for physical activity” was the highest obtainable. Our second strength was the area of social and economic factors, measures things such as high school graduation rates, violent crimes rates, children living in poverty, unemployment rates and social support. Sitka had the top ranking in the state for this category. Thirdly, Sitka’s availability of clinical care, including our number of health care providers, mental health counselors, and dentists proved to be a major strength. We are fortunate to have a lot of health and wellness experts in our town and to round out our list of assets we have clean air and water which is huge.
There are a few areas that need improvement. Most notably was our number of excessive and binge drinking episodes. Twenty-five percent of adults surveyed self-reported drinking in excess daily and or binge drinking in the last 30 days. That puts Sitka at 6 percent higher than the state average, 4 percent higher than Ketchikan and 8 percent higher than Juneau.
Sitka’s binge/excessive drinking numbers have been above the state average for years and that is significant when you consider that Alaska’s per capita drinking rates continue to be some of the highest in the country. The World Health Organization states that harmful use of alcohol results in 2.5 million deaths a year and is a risk factor associated with a number of poor health outcomes including: alcohol poisoning, hypertension, stroke, sexually transmitted infections, fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, unintended pregnancy, neurological damage, and liver disease. Excessive drinking is also a significant factor in unintentional injuries like falls and intentional injuries such as domestic violence.
Our second major area for improvement noted in the County Health Ranking is injury deaths.
Sitka’s rate of injury deaths is much higher than the state average. Nationally, the leading causes unintentional injuries deaths are: motor vehicle traffic, poisoning, and falls. In Sitka we can add boating related fatalities to this list.
Another challenge for Sitkans is the number of friends and family that are uninsured. Our rate of uninsured is 3 percent points higher than the state average. We are hopeful that this number will decrease and were happy to see so many locals getting health insurance for the first time this year.
In Sitka we enjoy clean air and water and live in a beautiful environment that encourages us to be active. Every community has areas to improve on and in addition to being safer and reducing our high rates of binge drinking there are dozens of ways that everyday citizens can make improvements and build on our town’s significant assets.
The annual report is available online at http://www.countyhealthrankings.org/. We hope you can check out he report and we look forward to working with all of you to improve Sitka’s health.
Sitka Health Summit Coalition,
Patrick Williams (SCH),
Angela McGraw (SCH),
Doug Osborne (SEARHC),
Clara Gray (SEARHC),
Penny Lehmann (Alaska Division of Public Health),
Ellen Daly (Alaska Division of
Public Health)
