Simsbury selectmen updated on mental health trends – Yahoo News
Representatives of the Farmington Valley Health District spoke to the Simsbury Board of Selectmen at its meeting, on Jan. 23, and presented an overview of the district’s recent community health assessment.
FVHD Community Health Program Associate Olivia Morris said the assessment gathered information from several local professionals from the health field and other related fields. The focus was on what problems are, how many people were affected, and what steps could be taken to mitigate those issues. Most of the data collected was from pre-pandemic surveys in 2019.
The report also incorporates demographics and social determinants of health, Morris said, adding that health behaviors, including exercise, alcohol, drug and tobacco use, were also examined.
Key findings, according to FVHD Epidemiologist Kirsten Carew, were mental health and substance use concerns for both adults and youth, high levels of residents being overweight or obese, low flu vaccination numbers, high household radon levels, and a lack of affordable housing.
“Sixty-five percent of adults reported zero days of poor mental health [in the last 30 days], which is great, although 23% reported one to seven days of poor mental health and 12% reported at least eight days of poor mental health,” Carew said. “Depression is a common and serious illness that can take several forms. Fifteen-point-seven percent of FVHD adults reported that they were diagnosed with a depressive disorder, and then sadly, 46% of people who have died by suicide have a known mental illness.”
Those numbers, Carew added, may not tell the whole truth.
“This is likely the tip of the iceberg,” she said. “These numbers are under-reported. By how much is not clear.”
Youth mental health numbers showed that 34% of Connecticut high school students reported mental health was not good for seven or more days out of the past 30.
“Almost 8% report that their mental health was not good for all 30 days,” Carew said. “These percentages are much higher in the gay, lesbian, and bisexual group.”
Also, 30.6% of high school students reported feeling unable to do every day activities, a significant increase from 2005, Carew said, adding that 15.4% engaged in self-harm behaviors and 6.7% considered suicide.
Among adults within the district, 20.6% reported excessive alcohol consumption, and alcohol abuse among senior citizens is at an all-time high.
Overdose deaths have quadrupled since 2015, per FVHD data, from five to 21 in 2021. Seventy-four percent were males and 94% were in white, non-Hispanic residents.
Next steps included sharing the information with as many people as possible, to community members and partners.
“We want to let them know what we’re doing,” Carew said. “We’re going to prioritize the issues based on these key findings, with feedback from community members and community partners. Then, we’ll establish work groups involving organizations, agencies, community members with subject matter expertise, and people who would like to be involved.”
From there, it will move into the community improvement plan, which will have goals, objective action steps, and strategies.
Selectmen said they were surprised by some of the severity of the numbers, and plan to help the information be put to good use.
“I hope that this can inform the work that our social services department does, as they’re thinking about programming, and we’re thinking about funding other related services,” said selectman Eric Wellman.
Deputy First Selectman Amber Abbuhl said the report could work in conjunction with the Aging Well in Simsbury survey that the town has been working on with the senior center.
“I’m hoping we can coordinate and talk about that, as we tease out some of this information into focus groups, because I think there’s going to be some overlap, and it could inform some of our recommendations going forward,” Abbuhl said.
For more information, including the complete community health assessment, visit www.fvhd.org.