Let's get Idaho off the sick list

With a new year freshly arrived, it’s time to assess our health. Thanks to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Trust for America’s Health, we’ve gotten a little help in that regard.

The news isn’t so good.

In their latest report, Idaho scored just three out of 10 on key indicators related to infectious disease prevention, detection and response. That put us at the bottom of the list nationally, along with six other cellar-dwellers.

One of the general conclusions of the report is that Idaho, like many other states, overuses antibiotics and underuses vaccinations. Complicating our health picture, the report says, insufficient funding has left big gaps in our ability to prepare for infectious disease threats.

Idaho flunked two key categories related to flu: Vaccination rates and school requirement policies for childhood immunization. Children foregoing vaccinations can threaten “herd immunity,” the report said.

While nobody likes to be compared to cattle or other herding beasts, getting immunized protects both the child and all the people that child contacts. The report cited a correlation between some community clusters and outbreaks where high levels of religious-based vaccine exemptions exist, as in Texas, Florida and Brooklyn.

Flu isn’t the only culprit. New infectious disease threats, such as MERS-CoV and antibiotic-resistant superbugs, are joined by resurging illnesses like whooping cough, tuberculosis and gonorrhea, the report said. Here are key state and federal recommendations:

• Increase resources to ensure every state can maintain and modernize basic capabilities — such as epidemiology and laboratory abilities — that are needed to respond to new and ongoing outbreaks;

• Update disease surveillance to be real-time and interoperable across communities and health systems to better detect, track and contain disease threats;

• Incentivize the development of new medicines and vaccines, and ensure systems are in place to effectively distribute them when needed;

• Decrease antibiotic overuse and increase vaccination rates;

• Improve and maintain the ability of the health system to be prepared for a range of potential threats — such as an influx of patients during a widespread outbreak or the containment of a novel, highly infectious organism that requires specialty care;

• Strengthen efforts and policies to reduce healthcare-associated infections;

• Take strong measures to contain the rising hepatitis C epidemic and other sexually transmitted infections, particularly among young adults; and

• Adopt modern strategies to end AIDS in every state and city.

While the report is national in scope, part of the solution is very personal. Make sure you and your family are immunized according to your doctor’s recommendations.

Report information: www.healthyamericans.org