GREEN COVE SPRINGS – County Commissioners heard some of the goals of the Florida Department of Health in Clay County during its meeting Tuesday, including concerns over increasing use of nicotine and electronic vapor products, overweight or obese residents, chronic disease, “roaring” cases of syphilis, substance abuse, behavioral health care, suicide and access to primary and specialty health care.

“We just look at those, and we identify key areas that the community decides what they want to work on,” said Heather Huffman, the health officer at the Florida Department of Health in Clay County. “We do a lot of this deciding with our community partners and part of all of those partners that are part of our local public health system.”

She said their surveys and focus groups found new issues impacting communities, like domestic violence and child abuse, which will be added to the behavioral health category.

Huffman said there are two primary health targets: obesity and vaping.

“Overweight, obesity continues to be a priority, a health priority for us and anything using electronic vaping products and nicotine,” she said. “We have a higher than the state average for those products use, so we want to continue working with secession purling planning and prevention.”

She also said infectious diseases are increasing.

“Communicable diseases came up on this one,” she said. “We’d like to think that syphilis got eradicated. It is making a roaring comeback, which is how I’m saying it. So, typically, we’d see less than 10 a year. I think last year was 30. In some cases, we’re seeing congenital syphilis cases where babies are being born to moms that had syphilis during their pregnancy, they can be stillborn or blind. And so we need to continue messaging out there about screening, testing, treatment, timely treatment and getting that message out to not only our OB providers but to other providers and not make assumptions about people’s lifestyle just because they’re in the marriage.”

Huffman said changes won’t happen quickly.

“We’re looking to move that needle,” she said. “How do we work better, more efficiently, and more effectively within our communities? And so, how do we make healthy choices, easy choices, versus those convenient choices? Typically, the rule of thumb is that it takes 10 years to see outcome objectives change. You can do lots and lots and lots of interventions, but it will take a decade to see those changes.”

The Board of County Commissioners meets on the second and fourth Tuesday at 4 p.m. on the fourth floor of the Administration Building.