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Features

[MARCH 29, 2003]  Visit CICBC's bus or booth at the Community Health Fair in April and check out the technology and services Central Illinois Community Blood Center provides for Logan County residents.

CICBC is much more than simply the blood provider for Lincoln residents. Central Illinois Community Blood Center provides a variety of services, including some of the latest automated technology for blood component donation.

On Saturday, April 5, at the local health fair, CICBC will have its "blood bus" and new double red cell machine. CICBC invites the public to tour the bus, check out this new technology, and sign up to win a T-shirt. There will also be information about other available technology and services.

Therapeutic phlebotomy for people with hereditary hemochromatosis is a new service offered by CICBC. This service is provided free of charge, either at your local blood drive or at the blood center in Springfield. More information will be available on the bus at the Community Health Fair.

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Central Illinois Community Blood Center is nonprofit, governed by a local volunteer board of directors, licensed by the FDA and operates as a partner with local hospitals. CICBC is your community blood center and the sole provider of blood to Abraham Lincoln Memorial Hospital, Hopedale Medical Complex, all of the Springfield hospitals and seven other local hospitals. It is also a member of America's Blood Centers, an association of 75 community blood centers representing over 500 blood collection sites that provide over 50 percent of the blood for this country. After these blood centers meet local needs, blood is shared throughout the United States through a resource-sharing network. Through this network CICBC is also called upon to help supply blood to our troops in time of war.

Be sure to visit Central Illinois Community Blood Center's "blood bus" or their booth to find out more about how your community blood center helps your community.

[CICBC press release]

[MARCH 24, 2003]  A strategic planning meeting called to address the problem of substance abuse among area teenagers and young adults drew around 40 participants to Abraham Lincoln Memorial Hospital on March 17. Eight substance-related deaths of people under 25 have occurred locally in the past 15 months.

Led by Jeff Nachbar, a project director from Minnesota, meeting participants exchanged insights about alcohol and other drug problems in the community and provided input for prioritizing a list of actions to be taken. The meeting was scheduled to run from 4 to 7 p.m. but was shortened to enable those present to attend the Lincoln City Council meeting or watch President Bush's address. As a result, Nachbar, who opened by saying, "I believe in trying to figure out how to get things done," had to stop short of identifying clear-cut actions to be taken. Instead, support for nine possible areas of effort will be tabulated and the results presented at the next Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drugs Task Force meeting.

Nachbar is project director for the Minnesota Join Together Coalition to Reduce Underage Drinking, which focuses on changing statewide public policy to reduce youth access to alcohol. He has additional experience as a community organizer for the Minneapolis Police Department's Crime Prevention Unit.

Participants in the strategic planning meeting included elected officials, administrators of city and county departments, school personnel, substance-abuse counselors, mental health practitioners, high school students, organization representatives and others. At least one recovering addict attended, and a woman who had lost a grandson. "This is an impressive gathering," Nachbar summarized. "You are people who can get things done."

Kristi Lessen, substance abuse prevention specialist for Logan-Mason Mental Health, and Lincoln Chief of Police Rich Montcalm are co-chairs of ATOD. Lessen provided a list of possible areas of effort culled from previous responses to an ATOD questionnaire. They are (1) parental education; (2) tailor consequences for underage drinking; (3) outreach programs for school-aged children; (4) expand to younger youth throughout the county; (5) programs that involve parents; (6) educate adults and parents with meetings, news media, Internet; (7) more community interest; and (8) look at social norms, regulations, laws governing alcohol, tobacco and other drugs in Logan County. Participants added a ninth possibility: drug testing for extracurricular activities in schools.

In four groups, task force members first narrowed and interpreted the eight original activities and noted their responses using four distinctive colors of ink. For example, parental education generated these notes: "parental attendance at drug education, pending registration -- and consequences of not attending"; "work with a role model"; and "use school enrollment days to provide information to parents."

The next step was to prioritize the annotated activities. Individuals received 14 self-adhesive dots, representing available resources such as time, money and enthusiasm. They then pasted the dots next to activities on which they would like to spend their resources. The greater the level of interest, the more dots. The result was a colorful display of support for each activity. Lessen will tabulate the responses to determine those with the strongest backing. Nachbar urged ATOD at its next meeting to choose three of these activities and commit to accomplishing them.

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"It was a step in the right direction," Lessen said of Monday's meeting. "Success is going to depend on the commitment and following through. I believe that with the people that were there (and others not able to attend but committed to the task force), we can be successful."

In defining the process for articulating goals and objectives, Nachbar differentiated between individual and environmental approaches and between supply and demand sides of a problem. For example, a supply-side approach to drug abuse would identify providers and means of access and try to eliminate them. Nachbar acknowledged that most supply-side activities are a police problem and outside the scope of the task force. A demand-side effort would attempt to intervene in a person's decision to use drugs. An individual approach would aim to change personal behavior, while an environmental approach would try to influence community norms and institutions. Using one each of their 14 dots, the majority of participants indicated that they favor demand-side interventions, especially focusing on the community environment.

While acknowledging that supply and demand, individual and environmental issues interact to create the drug and alcohol problem in Logan County, Nachbar urged participants to narrow the focus of activities in order to achieve success. You don't have to pick the most important thing to do first, he told them, but you need to start with activities that you can agree hold high potential effectiveness and are not apt to meet with great resistance.

Lessen said she and Montcalm first spoke with Nachbar two months ago. His appearance was funded by the Illinois Department of Human Services and Prevention First, Inc. Sharon Mast, regional representative of the state department, said that because there are only two agencies in the community with programs funded by the Department of Human Services -- Logan-Mason Mental Health and the Logan County Health Department -- it is important for their personnel to confer with others outside the area. She said community readiness evidenced by the work of a number of individuals and organizations was one reason Lincoln was chosen to receive the funding.

The next ATOD meeting is scheduled for noon on Friday, April 11, at the Logan County Health Department. It will be followed by a meeting of Mothers Against Drunk Driving at 1 p.m. Both sessions are open to the public.

ATOD is one of five Healthy Communities Partnership task forces. The others are Rural Health Partnership, Healthy Families Task Force, Senior Issues Task Force, and Domestic Abuse and Violence Task Force. In turn, Healthy Communities Partnership is a subcommittee of the Lincoln/Logan County Chamber of Commerce Healthcare Committee.

[Lynn Spellman]

Health Matters

A monthly feature from  Logan County Health Department

April is Child Abuse Prevention Month

[APRIL 1, 2003]  Since 1983, when April was designed Child Abuse Prevention Month, communities across the country have used this monthlong observance to increase awareness of child abuse and its prevention. It is a time when individuals, schools, businesses, hospitals, religious organizations, and social service agencies join forces in the battle against child abuse.

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--Children count on the adults in their lives. Report suspected incidents of child abuse and neglect. In Illinois, call 1 (800) 25-ABUSE [1-800-252-7328] and in emergency situations call 911.

Prevent Child Abuse Illinois was founded in 1990 to address the issues of child abuse and neglect prevention throughout Illinois. Prevent Child Abuse Illinois accomplishes its mission through public awareness campaigns, parent education and support programs, professional training and technical assistance, and community prevention programs. For more information about Prevent Child Abuse Illinois, call (217) 522-1129 or visit www.preventchildabuseillinois.org.

Prevent Child Abuse Illinois has offices in Bloomington, Chicago, DeKalb, East St. Louis, Glen Ellyn, Harvey, Joliet, Marion, Peoria, Rock Island and Springfield. The address for the home office is 528 S. Fifth St., Suite 211, Springfield, IL 62701.

[Provided by Logan County Health Department]

Red Cross

West Nile Virus

West Nile virus links

LDN articles

• Local authorities watching WNV

Federal websites

• CDC WNV home page

State websites

• State WNV website

• Protect your home against mosquitoes
• State surveillance site
• Logan County surveillance site

Honors & Awards

Announcements

CICBC blood drives monthly at paramedics' building

Blood supplies across the nation are critical. In some areas, there is less than a one-day supply. Fortunately, thanks to the dedicated donors in central Illinois, these tremendous shortages have not yet touched our hospitals. However, the blood supply is a resource that must be renewed. Every three seconds someone needs a blood transfusion of some kind. To accommodate this constant usage, community members must continually help replenish the supply. Since a donor can donate whole blood only every eight weeks, Central Illinois Community Blood Center needs community members to come forward and help with this lifesaving effort.

Central Illinois Community Blood Center provides all of the blood and blood products for 12 area hospitals, including those in Lincoln, Hopedale and Springfield. No other organization provides blood in these hospitals. CICBC is a community-based blood center whose mission is to provide a safe and adequate blood supply for patients in local hospitals in a cost-effective manner.

When you donate blood through CICBC, you help to keep a safe and adequate blood supply for your community. You also help keep local medical costs under control.

Regularly scheduled blood drives are on the first Monday of each month (except Labor Day) at the Logan County Paramedic Association building, 1300 N. Postville Road. (See schedule.) Please help by donating blood.

CICBC also provides other services for the communities served, such as therapeutic phlebotomy at no charge for patients with hereditary hemochromatosis.

For more information, call Terry Bell at 753-1530.

[CICBC press release]

• April 7, noon-6 p.m., at Logan County Paramedic Association building

• April 11, at Lincoln Community High School

• May 5, noon-6 p.m., at Logan County Paramedic Association building

• May 14, hours and location to be announced

• June 2, noon-6 p.m., at Logan County Paramedic Association building

• July 7, noon-6 p.m., at Logan County Paramedic Association building

• July 15, hours and location to be announced

• Aug. 4, noon-6 p.m., at Logan County Paramedic Association building

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• Sept. 8, noon-6 p.m., at Logan County Paramedic Association building

• Sept. 24, hours and location to be announced

• Oct. 6, noon-6 p.m., at Logan County Paramedic Association building

• Nov. 3, noon-6 p.m., at Logan County Paramedic Association building

• Nov. 12, hours and location to be announced

• Dec. 1, noon-6 p.m., at Logan County Paramedic Association building

The Rural Health Partnership has announced the schedule for its mobile health unit for 2002.

For more information on the mobile health unit schedule and services, contact Dayle Eldredge at (217) 732-2161, Ext. 409.

Community resource list

This family resource list to save and use is provided by the Healthy Communities Partnership and the Healthy Families Task Force, 732-2161, Ext. 409.         

(updated 2-15-02)

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