| OCR Text |
Show ISSUES AND UPDATES SALT LAKE HEALTH DEPARTMENT New Executive Director Thomas Schlenker, M.D., MPH, the newly appointed Executive Director of the Salt Lake Health Department, is a physician trained at Northwestern Medical School in Chicago and Children's Hospital of Wisconsin. He practiced general pediatrics in Milwaukee, Wisconsin from 1982 to 1986 and spent extended periods of time as a medical missionary in Nicaragua, Mexico and Guatemala before obtaining a public health degree from Harvard University in 1988. Dr. Schlenker served as Deputy Commissioner and Medical Director of the Milwaukee Health Department from 1988 through 1993. On January 1, 1994, he took over the leadership of the Salt Lake Health Department. While in Milwaukee, Dr. Schlenker focused on issues of children's health; in particular, immunizations, infant mortality and HIV disease. He is nationally recognized in the field of childhood lead poisoning prevention. Dr. Schlenker also directed communicable disease surveillance and outbreak control efforts in Milwaukee and has published research on measles, hepatitis and whooping cough. He was one of many health and environmental professionals who responded to the massive outbreak of water borne cryptosporidium disease that plagued Milwaukee in the Spring of 1993. Dr. Schlenker lives with his wife (also an MD and a masters in public health candidate at the University of Utah) and three sons in Salt Lake City. New Programs The Salt Lake City-County Health Department surveys and provides for the health of over 700,000 people: 43% of the population of the state of Utah. The 300 plus staff attend to all aspects of public health and provide a substantial amount of primary medical care to high risk populations. With the arrival of Thomas Schlenker, M.D., MPH the new Executive Director, 1994 will be a year of strategizing and continued reorganization. Strategic plans and new programs are being built in childhood immunizations, lead poisoning, hazardous waste disposal and air quality. These programs will be led by multi-disciplinary teams rather than bureaucratic structures and will seek to involve key elements of the private sector in all phases of planning and implementation. The two areas selected for highest priority this year are immunizations and air quality. The rate of up-to-date immunizations among preschoolers in Utah is, similar to the rest of the United States, quite poor. The national measles epidemic of the last few years has exposed our vulnerability. At the same time that a new vaccine is rapidly eliminating H. flu meningitis, it and other low cost, high quality vaccines are not reaching our youngest children when they need them the most. The fact that the first few months of 1994 produced over 100 cases of measles in Utah and a very frightening outbreak of deadly meningococcal meningitis makes the urgency of developing an effective and comprehensive immunization infrastructure even greater. Air quality is an issue that links the universal concern with preserving our exquisite natural environment along the Wasatch Front with the possibilities and problems associated with the dramatic growth this area will experience over the coming decades. The technical issues are complex but no more so than the political process that is rapidly involving the entire community in the tough decisions that will shape our future. Although small factions have already set up very firm and opposing positions on the proper way forward, many people are still confused, uninformed or uninterested. The Salt Lake Health Department hopes to assist in laying out the issues in an honest and fair way and working to catalyze thought, debate and ultimately action that will both allow for growth and preserve the environment. Utah's Health: An Annual Review 1994 123 |
