Kitsap Public Health District’s board received presentations on chronic disease and injury prevention programs, as well as an update on the county’s substance use prevention and response at its June 3 meeting.

Dana Bierman, KPHD chronic disease and injury prevention program manager, presented the board with an overview of the division and provided opioid overdose information.

The team consists of eight employees which aims to support healthy behaviors, including reducing health risks through collaboration, education and promotion of resources to members of the public, Bierman said.

The scope of the program includes: healthy eating, which aims to provide the public with nutritious food, injury prevention, facilitating the child fatality review team and car seat promotion.

The KPHD overdose dashboard reported in 2024, 58 residents died of an opioid overdose, 323 emergency department visits were due to opioid overdose, and emergency medical service providers responded to 437 overdose calls countywide.

Bierman discussed some of the impacts of the opioid epidemic on Kitsap County residents.

“Dr. Gib Morrow (KPHD health officer) also did a great job reminding us that each life lost has a profound impact on families and communities, and this is why we need to keep up this work,” she said.

Regarding community Naloxone training, KPHD reported in 2024, it trained 490 individuals and distributed 847 Naloxone kits, per agency documents.

Bierman said substance use prevention is multifaceted and takes collaboration between different stakeholders, including work on prevention, harm reduction, treatment and recovery to provide the public with the best outcome.

Bremerton Mayor Greg Wheeler shared his concerns about uncertain federal funding of programs such as Medicaid.

“It might not surprise anyone that the vast majority of people who have substance use disorder do not have private health insurance,” he said. “As the federal government weighs cuts to Medicaid, that number is going to plummet, because if it’s harder for people to maintain their Medicaid, they are not going to be able to afford substance use treatment. So there are consequences.”

Kitsap County Commissioner Christine Rolfes shared her support for a more treatment-centered approach.

“I am proud of the efforts that our community is doing, and I’m actively part of the efforts we’re doing, working with people with addiction and helping to find other paths, whether they were involved in criminal activities because of their addiction or not.”

Kelsey Stedman, a nurse and program manager at KPHD, who oversees the Hepatitis C program, shared that approximately 80% of people who contract Hepatitis C will go on to develop chronic infection.

“And the reason we care about this is because Hepatitis C is the leading cause of liver cancer and liver transplants in the U.S.,” she said. “This causes really high medical costs, long medical stays at the hospital, intensive treatments, and just overall, a really poor quality of life.”

Stedman said Hepatitis C is the most common bloodborne infection in the U.S. She also said Hepatitis C-related deaths exceed all deaths of notifiable conditions combined.

“It’s most commonly transmitted through sharing needles and other drug equipment or personal items. But it can also be spread through unregulated tattoos and piercings, such as those that take place in jails or prisons or in home settings,” she said. “Unlike Hepatitis A and B, there is no vaccine, but there is a cure. So there’s medication out now that is over 95% effective in treating Hepatitis C, and it’s two to three months of medication once a day, with very few side effects.”

Stedman said the medication can be prescribed by a primary care physician and is fully covered by Medicaid, with most private insurance companies covering co-pays. She added KPHD does surveillance work, gathering demographic information and interviewing patients to refer them to providers for treatment.

“Even though the fentanyl epidemic is heartbreaking in so many ways, I think there is a unique opportunity here, and there’s a silver lining where we have an opportunity to really address the baseline rates of Hepatitis C through things like connecting people to treatment and harm reduction services,” she said.

For vaccine information and future vaccine clinics, visit .kitsappublichealth.org/imms/home.