We come from a very diverse area so Southeast Utah Health Department thought it was a good idea to discuss Health Equity with listeners. Castle Country Radio was able to sit down with Health Equity Coordinator, Kirt Jensen to learn more about Health Equity and what it means to the public.

“Health Equity is basically giving everybody a fair and just opportunity to attain their highest level of health that they can. This requires them to find resources in the community and it requires the community to kind of overcome social injustices and other obstacles that are there in order for everybody to be able to attain health,” said Jensen. To achieve health equity, we must change the systems and policies that have resulted in the generational injustices that give rise to racial and ethnic health disparities.

“A health disparity is a preventable difference in the burden of disease from one person to another.  For example, if somebody lives in a house that is not very suitable for their living conditions, and there’s no water, there’s no heat, that kind of stuff – there’s a difference in their health based on where they live. Or if they don’t live next to a park, for example, or near somewhere they can exercise, that actually plays a huge part in whether they will or not get out an exercise,” said Jensen. The lack of knowledge about resources in the community can be a great barrier to most, especially, for new people in the community or people that are immigrants.

Health officials found that during the pandemic COVID hit certain groups harder than others like the Hispanic and Native Americans. “We knew we had to do something about it and that’s what we’re trying to do now is let everybody know that there are resources here in our community and we are kind of an information hub, we can point people in the right direction to where they need to go to find these resources,” said Jensen. The health department is not trying to reinvent the wheel, they are just trying to utilize the resources that are already in our community by making people aware of those resources.

“We act as a, kind of like a road map to these resources, they can come down, they can call, they can visit our website, under the resources tab at https://www.seuhealth.com/ and we can help direct them to the resources we have. If they are any questions whatsoever on specific resources that we don’t have here we may be able to connect those people to other resources that we know about,” said Jensen. The Southeast Utah Health Department website is a plethora of information about local resources in the area.

For further information on Health Equity individuals can contact the Southeastern Utah Health Department at (435) 637-3671.