With health survey done, focus groups up next for PHHC

A healthy county is a happy county, and Partners for a Healthier Holmes County met via Zoom recently to discuss what actions need to be taken with the final report of the recently administered and completed 2023 Holmes County Community Health Assessment.

Touching on issues including cancer, healthcare providers, chronic diseases, health education, health insurance, mental health and substance use, the survey was detailed and complete and gave the group plenty of information to work through.

The PHHC mailed out 1,200 paper surveys through the mail, receiving 247 completed surveys in return. In addition, there were an additional 44 responses received electronically, which provided a sampling of 291 total surveys from which the committee could glean.

“Our goal was to get back at least 265 surveys, so this was a huge benefit for us to get 291,” said Jen Talkington, who is heading up the group. “Our goal now is to sift through the preliminary results of the survey to figure out what types of focus groups we should pursue that would be the most important to the people of Holmes County.”

Jill Decker, contracted epidemiologist for Holmes County General Health District, assembled all of the collected data and put together the executive summary of the survey. She said the hope is these surveys present critical information as to what the people of Holmes County believe to be the most important areas of health to explore and improve.

Decker began by discussing the survey process and methods of collecting the data, followed by a closer look at the analytics, and last, the group explored the preliminary findings in the 2023 health assessment, a 19-page document full of information that should lead the PHHC team to zeroing in on several critical components of health issues in the county.

Decker said the survey includes a 95% confidence level in the data collected from Holmes County residents, with a 6% margin of error.

The survey fleshed out information about how Holmes Countians felt about their physical health, physical activity, mental health, ability and willingness to regularly visit a health provider, the types of chronic diseases among the population, communication via broadband and verbally through language barriers, education levels, health insurance, substance abuse, infectious diseases and nutrition, and even information like ability to get to a local grocer for fresh food and overall dietary habits.

All of the information received was kept confidential and was only collected to encapsulate an overall picture of the health of the people of Holmes County.

“I was a bit surprised by some of the results, especially by the radon numbers related to deaths,” Decker said. “I was also surprised by the low drug use and smokers.”

Among the myriad responses, the top three health concerns identified by the survey were Lyme disease, adults not making time for enough physical activity and lack of access to quality healthcare providers.

“There’s a lot of really good information collected that will provide a great starting point for us,” Decker said.

With this statistical tool now at its disposal, the PHHC will now pursue the development of focus groups.

“Based on the data presented in the executive summary, we need to develop targeted focus groups in the community, but we need to figure out exactly what areas of interest those would include,” Talkington said.

She said in 2020 the county tried to create focus groups with older adults, a Hispanic/Latino focus group, a Plain community focus group and an LGBTQ+ focus group.

Neither the Hispanic/Latino nor the Plain community groups developed, something Talkington hopes to improve by having the team members decipher which groups should become the center of the focus groups.

“I think we had to give up on those at the time because of COVID,” Talkington said. “We did receive some good feedback in the other two.”

Michael Derr, Holmes County Health District commissioner, recommended a return to the Hispanic/Latino group and a return to the senior adult group, which was a large part of the respondents for the survey.

“We know there has been a change in the community with service at the Senior Center being somewhat limited, so this might be an excellent opportunity to collect some information to better serve that population,” Derr said.

He said he also would like to target people in the 18-35 age who are involved in recreational activities the county could push to the people of Holmes County as a whole.

Additionally, Derr said there is a growing need to reach out to the Hispanic community and the language barrier that exists.

While the survey didn’t contain a portion committed to collecting information from teens, the group did discuss at length the need to create a focus group involving high school teens who could provide insight into the mindset of teens today to help develop ways to benefit teens suffering from things like mental health or anger issues.

“When we do our next survey in 2026, we definitely want to include a youth survey,” Talkington said. “That will be a priority.”

Youth discussion also centered around drug use and how the legalization of marijuana will impact youth.

Talkington said focus groups are something the Holmes County Health Department has been implementing for some time, such as the recent ones focusing on Lyme disease and physical activity.

The group agreed it would offer some type of incentive to focus group participants as they are created, in hopes of bringing more voices into each group.

Talkington said the executive summary results are something she would like to finalize and then publish on the health department website by the end of the year.

Decker said she will create a more in-depth expansion of the executive summary that will do a deep dive into the statistics, which should provide more vision as to where the group wants to move in the future.

“Once that technical part is done, we can begin the community health improvement process,” Decker said. “There’s a lot of good information to build off of from the assessment.”