Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Public Health Services topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Kalamazoo County Health and Community Services summarizes programs, highlights mobile clinic and harm‑reduction work
Summary
Kalamazoo County Health and Community Services gave the Committee of the Whole an overview of its divisions — including Area Agency on Aging services, environmental health, maternal and child health, communicable disease, immunizations and a mobile health unit — and described current outreach, partner collaboration and program priorities.
Lindsey Merling, health education supervisor for Kalamazoo County Health and Community Services, told the Kalamazoo City Commission’s Committee of the Whole on Aug. 18 that the county health department provides a broad set of mandated public‑health functions and additional community services, from beach and well testing to a mobile clinic that offers vaccinations and STI testing.
“Our mission is to improve the health for all residents of Kalamazoo County,” Merling said, and she described the department’s vision of achieving equity in social, mental, physical and environmental health.
Merling reviewed the department’s divisions. The Area Agency on Aging (Region 3A) administers the Kalamazoo County senior millage and runs programs including an annual Senior Expo (Oct. 7 at the Kalamazoo County Expo Center). The environmental health unit performs well and beach water testing, inspects campgrounds and manages temporary and permanent food licensing; it also operates an off‑site household hazardous waste collection program. The department maintains an in‑house laboratory used for water and clinical testing.
Merling outlined maternal and child health services that include home‑visitation programs (Nurse‑Family Partnership, Healthy Babies Healthy Start, Healthy Families America), a Breast and Cervical Cancer Navigation program, children’s special health care services and WIC (Women, Infants and Children) nutritional services. She described fatherhood programming, infant safe‑sleep education, fetal and infant mortality review work, and connections between WIC, immunizations and personal‑health services to provide wraparound referrals.
The personal health division runs childhood lead poisoning case management, communicable‑disease investigations and outbreak response, a five‑day‑a‑week clinic for STI and HIV testing and treatment, immunization programs (including international travel immunizations), hearing and vision screening in schools, and a family‑planning clinic offering counseling, exams, contraception and PrEP.
Merling described a health‑education office launched in January 2024 that has dedicated educators for opioid/harm‑reduction work, STI/cannabis education, healthy homes (lead, mold, pests, indoor air), and a generalist who coordinates internal programs and community partnerships. Initiatives include a condom distribution campaign, naloxone training and distribution, gun locks, healthy‑homes workshops with free kits and radon test kits, marijuana lock bags, tobacco‑ and vaping‑cessation services, and mobile‑unit outreach for vaccinations, STI testing and other health services.
Deputy Health Officer Deb Lunns added that most maternal and child health programming focuses on children from birth through age 5 and that the department partners with community programs such as Cradle Kalamazoo, RxKids and Fatherhood Network for referrals and continuum‑of‑care activities. Lunns said the department performs fetal infant mortality review and works with providers and hospitals to address access and follow‑up needs.
Commissioners asked about coordination, emerging issues and capacity. Merling said the health department conducts an annual Lyme disease work group that includes epidemiologists, the communicable‑disease team and environmental health; the department performs tick surveillance and education and recently targeted summer camps for outreach. On hazardous waste, Merling said the county is seeking larger off‑site capacity. On staffing, she said the department employs about 150 people and that short‑term budget cuts were not anticipated at the time of the presentation, though some funding streams remain uncertain.
Merling asked commissioners to note upcoming events and resources; she provided brochures and said additional data (for example, tick and mosquito surveillance results) can be provided by the department’s epidemiology team. The presentation was informational; no formal commission action or vote occurred during this item.
