Orange County NC Website
Orange County Health Department Focuses on Public Outreach <br />By Chris Grunert <br />Posted February 3, 2016 at 1:29 pm <br />The Orange County Health Department has released its annual report highlighting some of the <br />department's successes. <br />Spokesperson Stacy Shelp said a lot of their work relies on strong local partnerships. <br />"The work we are doing both as a health department and a community is just so critical and we are <br />really seeing an impact being made. We are seeing healthier individuals and a healthier culture," said <br />Shelp. <br />Orange County is the first health department to post their health inspection scores directly to Yelp, a <br />popular website that evaluates restaurants on customer reviews. <br />"Knowing the importance of technology and peoples use of applications such as Yelp to look at where <br />am I going to go for dinner? This would be a great place to have that information at your fingertips when <br />you're making those choices," said Shelp. <br />There have been some trends over the past year that worry the health department. <br />"We are also seeing more trends that are a little more frightening, like an increase in STD cases, so really <br />needing to do more education around prevention of sexually transmitted diseases," said Shelp. <br />Last year the health department received recognition for its opium overdose program. Police and <br />emergency services now have access to the drug Naloxone, which can help reverse an overdose. <br />The Health Department has also extended their anti - smoking efforts to include public housing. <br />"Our services and our partnerships have gone in and worked on projects around teaching property <br />managers about how they can create their own smoke free facilities in public housing, which is very <br />exciting," said Shelp. <br />You can view the full report here <br />