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Be Proactive, Not Reactive: Stay Up-To-Date on Cancer Screenings

If someone told you that doing two things could add years on to your life, would you do them? Well each of us can take two actions that reduce our risk of developing and dying from the most common types of cancer. One, make efforts to reduce harmful everyday habits that increase your risk of certain cancers (things like quitting smoking, reducing alcohol consumption, being at a healthy weight, exercising, eating right, etc.) Two, follow the guidelines for recommended cancer screenings . The way I see it, cancer screenings are the equivalent of working smarter, not harder. Early detection through screening reduces the likelihood you will die from cancers of the breast, cervix, colon and rectum (colorectal), prostate, and lung. Some screenings can even prevent cancers by finding and treating precancerous cells or lesions. A screening early, can save stress, money, and time later – and time can mean years added on to your life. This month, we are talking to Colleen Jackson, Community Out...
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Making the Grade: A Community Health Assessment

During a Q&A session at a community presentation last week, I was asked, “how does Clinton County stack up, health-wise, against other communities?” Now statistically we can say, we are better at this measure or worse at this one, but overall how do we know? How do you go about giving a community of almost 80,000 residents, spanning over 1,000 square miles a report card? Answer, a community health assessment (CHA). This month we are putting our usual host in the hot seat. Instead of asking the questions, Molly Flynn, Principal Public Health Educator at CCHD, will be answering them. Molly joined CCHD in 2018 and has been involved in three out of four iterations of the community health assessment resident survey. She is going to walk us through what the assessment is, why we need it, how we make sure it’s a good representation of our community, and more. Molly, we will start with an easy one. What is a community health assessment? A community health assessment, or CHA, is a snaps...
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Don't fall for me...

Every second, of every day, an older adult falls. Falls are the leading cause of injuries (both fatal and nonfatal) for older adults. As an elder-millennial – my mind can’t help but go to “help I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” . While not all falls are a LifeAlert© emergency, we want to do everything we can to avoid even minor falls. Falls, with or without injury, can alter someone’s quality of life or even make them more likely to experience another fall. Which makes taking steps to reduce the risk of a fall extremely important. This month, we are talking to Rachel Pierce, Public Health Sanitarian with CCHD’s Healthy Neighborhoods Program about ways to change someone’s home environment to make daily activities easier, reduce accidents (including falls), and support independent living. Rachel, we often think of age as the only factor that can increase someone’s risk of a fall, but what else can play a roll? You’re right, age is a factor that can increase someone’s risk of a fall, bu...
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The Most Wonderful Time of the Year?

The holiday season brings with it nostalgia, excitement, joy and (sometimes) comfort. Let’s face it, it’s hard not to feel something when the neighborhood is lit up at night. Combine high expectations, with loneliness, stress or grief and it is no longer the most wonderful time of the year. In fact, NAMI reports that 24% of people with mental illness report the holidays make their conditions worse. Now, the holiday blues are different from mental illness, but even short-term mental health problems need to be taken seriously. They can lead to bigger things down the road. With us fresh off of Thanksgiving and the delight (and dysfunction) that can bring, this month we enlisted the help of our friend Richelle Gregory. Richelle is the Director of Community Services at Clinton County Mental Health and Addiction Services. Richelle, what make the holidays a difficult time for so many of us? The holiday season brings on additional stress for many of us. Family commitments, financial pressu...
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Pumpkin Spice Up Someone's Life

The worst part about being an adult has to be the endless cycle of meal planning, shopping, preparing and cleaning up after preparing meals. I had no idea I would spend so much of my adult life thinking about what my family was going to eat. Add in the cost of food and it’s enough to keep you up at night. Did you know Clinton County’s food insecurity rate was almost 12% in 2020? And think about how much the cost of living has changed since then. Nutrition security means having consistent and equitable access to healthy foods, having them available in our stores, having them be affordable to us and knowing what to do with them. If our family is missing even one of those pieces, it can make us food or nutrition insecure. CCHD is working with local partners to try and combat the roadblocks our families face every day while trying to feed their families. In 2022, we created a Food Action Plan with local partners to set goals, priorities, actions and strategies intended to strengthen the l...
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Burning Questions: Fire Prevention & Safety

Social media has us watching real-time updates of structure fires in the North Country – but am I just noticing them now or are they happening more often? Or is it both? According to the U.S. Fire Administration, the number of fires, fire related deaths and money lost due to fires in the U.S. have all increased more than 10% in the past 10 years. The U.S. has already seen 1,403 home fire fatalities just this year. Do you have a plan if you woke up to a fire in your home in? Now in my house, it has been made very clear – I am on my own, my wife will be saving the dogs before me. But that hardly makes us prepared. How will we get out of each room? Where will we meet? This fire safety month, we sat down with Clinton County Emergency Services Director Eric Day. Eric has more than 30 years of experience preventing and fighting fires in the North Country. Eric, it seems like we have had more major structure fires in the past few years than usual. Is that true or are they just more widely ...
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Opioids in the North Country: What it Really Looks Like

 Like many of you, each day articles pop up on my social media feed referring to a ‘crisis’, a ‘problem’ or an ‘epidemic’ surrounding the use of opioids. But is what I see portrayed on the news or social media really what is happening here where I live? It’s common for us North Country folk to see statistics from New York City, Buffalo or Rochester referred to as ‘New York’ – but where we live is so different than those cities, it makes it hard to gauge how serious it really is. This month, we have enlisted the help of Carrie Coryer to help us better understand what this problem looks like in our community, and more importantly, what we can do to help. Carrie is the Harm Reduction Program Manager for the Alliance for Positive Health and works with individuals struggling with addiction each day to help guide them through the recovery process and break down the barriers they may have to achieve that success.  Carrie, growing up here I have always heard that drugs were a probl...
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