Burke County health department presents community health assessment, communicable disease update and child-fatality prevention work; inspections performance and

Burke County health department staff presented data and program updates Monday as part of the Board of Health meeting. The board accepted the county's recent community health assessment and improvement plan, received a communicable disease surveillance update, and accepted the annual child fatality review report.

Miranda Smith, public health educator for Burke County, summarized the community health assessment process and the three priorities selected from the 2022 assessment: mental health, substance use disorder and obesity. "Out of the 2,149 individuals, 888 people who took the survey said that mental health, anxiety, and depression impacted the overall health of the individual the most," Smith said. The county's Community Health Improvement Plan chose programs tied to those priorities including a Community Paramedicine program, recovery-court support and food-access initiatives such as a WIC-linked fresh food voucher program.

Smith said the county collected 2,149 survey responses and conducted focus groups; the 2022 Community Health Improvement Plan was submitted in February (year not specified in packet) and the State of County Health (SOTC) reports were submitted in March. She told commissioners the department is finishing the 2025 community health assessment and plans to present the new findings in November.

Danny Scalise presented the communicable disease surveillance information and asked the board to approve related policy updates. The slide set in the board packet showed case counts across two fiscal years and recorded decreases in chlamydia, slight increases in hepatitis C and syphilis, and zero reported cases of certain rarer diseases such as measles or malaria. After the presentation, the board voted to approve the communicable disease surveillance, investigation and reporting policy and to acknowledge the report (vote recorded as 5 to 0).

The board also heard the child fatality review team's annual report. Smith said the review covers every child death under age 18 and that the county has refocused procedures after legislative changes took effect July 1 of the prior year. The team reviewed 65 child deaths from 2018 and identified preventable contributors including unsafe sleep; the county used its child-fatality funding to buy and distribute 78 sleep sacks and 17 portable cribs (pack-and-plays) shared across public health, Department of Social Services and the local hospital.

Separately, Scalise updated the board on environmental health and restaurant inspections. He said reclassification and restoration of three full-time equivalent positions brought inspection coverage from a projected 50% of required inspections to 88% in the last fiscal year, and he said the department expects to reach 100% of required inspections well before the fiscal year's end. "Having those 3 FTEs made that exceptionally helpful," Scalise told the board. He said permitting timelines improved from an eight-week backlog to an average four-week turnaround for applicants who submit complete materials.

During the commissioners' reports, members praised county staff for an emergency response the prior day after a fire at Grama Heights; commissioners said staff moved residents and coordinated triage and temporary sheltering at the Foothills Higher Education Center. The board did not take formal action on the incident during the meeting, but several commissioners publicly commended the response.

County Manager (name not specified) gave an update on the human resource center renovation project: the board previously selected Holland and Hamrick as the design firm, a design contract was executed with a fee proposal tied to a percentage of construction cost (recorded in the packet as 7.1 percent), and the manager said the team will aim for permit-ready drawings in summer 2026 and an approximately 18-month construction schedule thereafter. The manager said staff are pursuing outside funding and preparing an in-house construction budget.

Ending

The board accepted the reports and continued to other agenda items; commissioners scheduled follow-up briefings (for example, the 2025 community health assessment presentation planned for November).