Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Community Health topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Putnam County Health Departments CHIP flags rising poor mental-health, suicide trends and food insecurity
Summary
The Department of Healths 2026 Community Health Assessment (CHIP) reports a 23% rise in adults self-reporting fair/poor mental health from 2022 to 2025, an increase in three-year average suicide mortality, higher food insecurity and declining HPV vaccination rates; county staff launched a public survey and outreach flyer.
Rian Rodriguez, Putnam County Public Health Director, and Supervising Public Health Educator Shanna Siegel presented the countys Community Health Assessment and Community Health Improvement Plan for 2026, describing primary and secondary data sources and inviting stakeholder input. "The issue of residents not being able to access primary care contributes to a less healthy environment overall," Rodriguez said, tying primary-care access to broader health outcomes.
Siegel highlighted several concerning trends: adults self-reporting their mental health as fair or poor rose 23% from 2022 to 2025, the three-year average suicide mortality increased, food insecurity has risen since 2021, alcohol and tobacco use remain high, 13.4% of surveyed students reported riding with a drinking driver in the prior 30 days, and HPV vaccination rates are falling. She said Live Healthy Putnam and other community organizations are part of a coalition to move findings into policy and programming.
Committee members asked for more granular data and clarification on data sources. Legislator Gouldman asked whether zip-code-level economic stability is available; Siegel said the CHIP is not available by zip code but state dashboards can show hyper-local indicators. Legislator Crowley noted changes in hospital insurance participation that affect employee access; Rodriguez confirmed that regional insurance-network shifts (NYSHIP/Optum) have had ripple effects and that the county will pursue more recent behavioral-risk data sources for substance-use and mental-health tracking.
The Health Department distributed a flyer with QR codes linking to the CHIP materials and a resident survey that asks users to rank the five health topics most important to them. Siegel said the survey is Putnam County-specific and available on the county Health Department website. The committee agreed the CHIP and its data support continued attention to mental-health services and related county programs.
