With recently awarded grant funding aimed at tackling hypertension, the Summit County Health Department plans to launch a new initiative in Eastern Summit County. Despite overall county numbers for hypertension breaking even with the state average, portions of the county are exceeding that average by roughly five percentage points.

The $30,000 grant came from the Utah Department of Health through the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s “Heart Disease and Stroke Prevent Program.”

“The purpose of the grant is to inform the general public and clinicians about the contributions high blood pressure has to heart disease and stroke,” said Richard Bullough, the executive director of the Summit County Health Department. “The grant will be used twofold for both a citizen-awareness campaign and clinical quality-improvement efforts.”

According to the CDC, hypertension, also known as high blood pressure, has been strongly linked to increased risks of some of the country’s most deadly diseases, stroke and heart disease. The CDC estimates that about one in three adults in the United States have the disease. Average hypertension rates in the state affect roughly 18.4 percent of the population based on information from the Summit County Health Department. In East Summit County, hypertension affects an estimated 23.5 percent.

“Hypertension is always a concern,” said Dr. Wain Allen, a clinician at the Coalville and Kamas Clinics. “It’s one of the things we routinely monitor in all our patients, and one of the top four diagnoses we treat.”

Hypertension is often referred to as a silent killer, and those suffering from it may be unaware of the problem until something more serious arises. That is why Bullough plans to put a strong emphasis in raising awareness through the one-year grant funding.

“The focus is just in the eastern part of county through a partnership with the libraries,” Bullough said. “Since we share buildings, it seems like logical partnership to get information out with their help.”

As well as partnering with the libraries in East Summit County, the grant funds will also go toward training opportunities in both health department and private clinics wishing to participate. Bullough is currently researching more tools offer to local clinics, training opportunities included.

“High blood pressure is a funny disease,” he said. “If left untreated you don’t know you have it but it will kill you. It literally is a primary contributor to death in this country.”

The funding will last for one year, but the health department hopes to continue receiving funding from the state in future years. The Summit County Health Department is also waiting on requests for grants on diabetes prevention, which is another issue Bullough hopes to tackle in the eastern portion of the county where it is more prevalent.

The grant is the first applied for and awarded to the county using state information on health issues based on zip codes rather than looking at the county as a whole. Being able to divide information to localize health care options even more helped the Summit County Health Department receive the grant, Bullough said.

“We haven’t used this zip code strategy before, but have looked at disparate populations,” he said. “In part this is because the state has more information like this available, and this will influence how grants are applied for in the future.”