Public Health is governed by a Board of Health consisting of provincially appointed local municipal councillors, mayors and community members and is mandated to support the well-being of individuals and communities.
Dr. Nicola Mercer, Medical Officer of Health and CEO, updated the Board of Health on:
Opioids
Public Health has taken on the role of monitoring, assessing and reporting on opioid-related events in Wellington and Dufferin counties and the city of Guelph. Local data from police, hospitals, EMS, outreach programs and shelters is being collected. This data will complement Public Health Ontario’s Interactive Opioid Tool which provides patterns and trends of opioid-related events at the health unit or LHIN levels. The local data will give WDG Public Health similar information but at municipal and neighbourhood levels so community partners can allocate resources and respond in an informed way. At the same time, Public Health will make Naloxone available to key community partners so it can be available through outreach programs in the community.
Population Health
As an agency Public Health’s Health Analytics team has built a dynamic and sustainable report development and delivery infrastructure to support evidence-based practice and decision making. This infrastructure builds appropriate data models that support information development and visualization. Interactive data dashboards will allow for information to be refreshed quickly as new data are available and for consumers to interact with the data by choosing the characteristics they are most interested in such as geographies, age categories, time period or gender. Dashboards can be easily shared internally and with community partners. A variety of reports will be created in the form of dashboards:
- Community profiles
- Population profiles
- Health status reports
- Surveillance reports
Rabies
On May 25 it was confirmed that a fox in Waterloo Region tested positive for the fox strain of rabies. The Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNRF) has tested almost 6,000 animals across Ontario and confirmed 321 cases of the raccoon strain of rabies and 8 cases of the fox strain. The MNRF has distributed 1.6 million vaccine baits and will be distributing more in the Guelph area in mid-July.