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Show State Dept. Of Health Meets Representatives of the State Department of Health were in Farmington to meet with Richard Harvey. MPH, acting director, Davis County Health Dept. and his staff. Meetings were also held with the Department's Depart-ment's Board of Health and county commissioners. ACCORDING to W. Lee Shaw, Department of Health public information officer, this was another in a series of meetings meet-ings with local health officers, boards of health and county commissioners being held throughout the state by the State Department of Health. "One of the most important functions of these visists is the personal relationship that is developed where heretofore the main means of communication communica-tion has been by telephone or letter," said Mr. Shaw. THE STATE representatives representa-tives had a briefing on the activities acti-vities in Davis County and met with county commissioners on health programs and policy. There were also meetings with the department's board of health and consultations with the county's health workers. A performance audit was a major part of the Tuesday visit. "The Department of Health does performance audits au-dits for local health programs as a service to the local health department. This is just one part of the visit but it allows state health officials the opportunity oppor-tunity to see how the public health programs are operating on the local level. It is also a time to share ideas on operating operat-ing procedures by the health professionals, said Mr. Shaw. AN IMPORTANT item of discussion Tuesday related to the manpower needs of the health department to meet the demands of growth. "The department will need to plan for its needs to meet the pressures of growth," said Mr. Shaw. He indicated that the Davis County area is projected to increase in population by approximately 63,000 by 1985 to an estimated population of . 207,000 according to the state's High Development Scenario. Projections indicate a county population of 250,500 by 1990 according to this scenario. sce-nario. MR. SHAW said that health statistics indicate that Davis County had a birth rate of 28.8 per 1,000 births in 1979 compared com-pared to a rate of 30.0-1 ,000 for the state. The death rate for the district in 1979 is 3.7-1,000 compared to the 5.8 state rate per 1,000. Davis County has a slightly lower infant mortality rate of 10.0-1,000 live births compared com-pared to the state at 10.7 in 1979. The county was also lower low-er in the tuberculosis rates per 100,000 at 1.46 compared to the state rate of 3.29 in 1979. . FOR sexually transmitted diseases, the county had a rate of 65.0 per 100,000 for gonorrhea gonor-rhea in 1979 compared to the state rate of 147.2-100,000. For 1979, the syphilis rate in the county was 1.5-100,000 compared com-pared to the state rate of 3.0-100,000. 3.0-100,000. Military cases are excluded ex-cluded from both sets of rates. In 1979 there were 180 cases of other notifiable diseases reported re-ported in Davis County. Notifiable Noti-fiable diseases reported included in-cluded amebiasis, chicken-pox, chicken-pox, hepatitis, measles, meningococcal infections, mumps, rheumatic fever, rubella, salmonellosis, shigellosis, shigel-losis, tularemia, aseptic meningitis and pertusis (whooping (who-oping cough). There are 22 notifiable diseases but these are the only ones reported for the county. The State Department of Health representatives visiting Ogden included the following: Dr. James O. Mason, executive execu-tive director; Melvin M. Owens, deputy director; Dr. Richard E. Johns, Jr., director, direc-tor, Division of Community Health Services; Dr. Peter C. van Dyck, director, Division of Family Health Services. ALSO, Athleen B. Coyner, RN, MS, acting director, Public Pub-lic Health Nursing; Alvin E. Rickers, director, Division of Environmental Health; W. Lee Shaw, public information officer; and William J. Coff-man, Coff-man, local health liaison. |