https://mailchi.mp/publichealthmdc/2024-06_pulse?e=e734e35974
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| June 2024 Here’s an overview of some of the things we’ve been working on at Public Health Madison & Dane County since our last newsletter. Hard Work Successfully Limits Spread of Measles in Our Community When measles outbreaks in neighboring states started popping up earlier this spring, we began proactively preparing for potential cases here in Dane County. When we had a confirmed case in late April we sprang into action, conducting extensive contract tracing and collaborating with other local health departments to make sure that people who were exposed were immune, vaccinated, or quarantined. Because measles is so uncommon and infectious—simply being in the same room with someone who has measles is enough to become infected if you’re not vaccinated—just one case constitutes an outbreak. An outbreak is officially over when it has been 42 days with no cases—that’s 2 incubation periods. This is an example of what we train and plan for, and we’re happy to say that our outbreak is now officially over, with no spread from our original case of measles. Want to do what you can to support future events like this? Know where your vaccination records are! Helping You Have a Safe Summer Wisconsinites wait for what seems like an eternity for the arrival of summer, so we certainly don’t want to spend those weeks being sick. We’ve released a series of summer safety blog posts with tips to keep you healthy. Protect yourself from illnesses caused by tick bites and learn where to get one of our popular tick kits. Prevent mosquito bites and learn how to get rid of standing water where mosquitoes lay eggs to avoid mosquito-spread illnesses. Learn how to keep food at the proper temperatures to prevent food poisoning from ruining your picnic or cookout. Know before you go if the water is ok for swimming at your local beach. You can also check out our news release about new techniques we’re using to report beach water quality results faster and more frequently, and to pre-emptively close beaches prone to high bacteria in the water after heavy rainfalls. While you’re there you can sign up to get daily beach closure updates! Curious to know how common illnesses caused by ticks, mosquitoes, and food are in our area? Check out our Communicable Illness Data Dashboard! You can stay up to date on summer safety and more topics by subscribing to get our blogs by email. New Data Reports Released We’ve just released two new data reports. Our latest data report on Dane County Drug Overdose Death Trends provides valuable insights into current overdose death trends, highlights areas of concern, and outlines our next steps in combatting this crisis. Our other new report unveils the experiences of Hmong American youth in Dane County, using disaggregated data from the Dane County Youth Assessment. This report underscores how important data disaggregation is for health equity; when people are invisible in the data, they become invisible in policymaking and funding decisions. You can read these data reports and more on our Data Reports webpage. Grant Funds Distributed for Three Requests for Proposals We’re excited to share that we’ve recently awarded money from three different requests for proposals! A total of $70,000 was awarded to five organizations interested in helping their community stay prepared for emergencies. A total of $100,000 was awarded to a consulting firm to examine the feasibility of opening a Dane County overdose prevention center. A total of $30,000 was awarded to 4 organizations to do community outreach about PFAS. You can visit our Funding Opportunities webpage to see the list of awardees and sign up for email notifications about future funding opportunities. Stay Connected! We’re so happy to have you on our list to get The Pulse! Click the blue bar below to see what other communications you want to get from us, including funding and grant opportunities. To stay up to date on our work throughout the year, follow us on social media and subscribe to our news releases, newsletters, and blog. Sign Up For Public Health News Releases, Newsletters, and Blog |