Westchester, Explained 13: Summer at the Health Department - Ticks, Sunburns, and Safety Tips

As an extension of our weekly "This Week in Westchester - The Podcast" we welcome you to Westchester, Explained. In this special long-form series we take you deeper into the headlines, decisions and policies shaping Westchester County and their impact on your family, your neighborhood and your future. Here we slow it down, dig in and bring in the people doing the work, and we explain not just what the County is doing, but why it matters.

Because government should be clear. This is your County. 

And this is Westchester, Explained. 

In this episode, we sit down with Westchester County Health Commissioner Dr. Sherlita Amler to discuss the most important health and safety issues that residents should keep in mind this summer. 

From sun protection, hydration and water safety to tick-borne illnesses, rabies prevention and the importance of vaccines -- we break down practical steps families and all residents can take to stay healthy during the warmer months. 

We also explore the critical role the Westchester County Health Department plays in protecting our community every day -- and why it matters to Westchester residents.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Hi Westchester. I'm Westchester County Government Communications Director Katherine Chaffee. And as an extension of This Week in Westchester, the podcast, we welcome you to Westchester Explained. In this episode, we sit down with Westchester County Health Commissioner, Dr. Shalita Amler, to discuss the most important health and safety issues that residents should keep in mind this summer. From sun protection to hydration and water safety to tick-borne illnesses, rabies prevention, and the importance of vaccines. We break down practical steps families and all residents can take to stay healthy during the warmer months. We also explore the critical role the Westchester County Health Department plays in protecting our community every day and why it matters to Westchester residents. Because this is Westchester explained. So let's begin. So here is one of my favorite commissioners, Dr. Emlar, who is the Westchester County Health Department Commissioner. But why don't we start with what does the health department do?

SPEAKER_01 1:09

Well, our job is to make sure that our residents are as healthy as they possibly can be. And we do that primarily by protecting your food and water, making sure the water you drink, the food you eat is safe to be consumed. We try to educate people about whatever the disease of the moment is and what they need to do to protect themselves. We remind them of the importance of vaccines and help provide vaccines for children and families that don't have health insurance or their insurance doesn't cover it. We take care of people with tuberculosis, which is still a disease that people can die from. It's still out there. Since biblical times, we've seen TB, and unfortunately, we're still dealing with it. So it's a lot of communicable disease. And I think the most important thing we do is really educate the public about what they need to do in order to stay healthy and to keep their families healthy.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

Right. There's so many things that you do that we don't know and take for granted. Like you mentioned, the food and the water. So every time you go out to eat in Westchester County, you're able to do that because of one of your employees. Right.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

We've had people in the facility making sure that they're, you know, the first of all, they're starting with a safe product, a good product, that it's stored appropriately, that it's cooked appropriately, you know, and just make sure that they're not doing anything that could make people sick by how they're handling the food.

SPEAKER_00 2:38

Does Westchester County rate restaurants the way New York City does?

SPEAKER_01 2:42

No, we don't, because when we look at, you know, New York City, if you walk through New York City, they're all A's, and obviously not every restaurant is an A. So it gives people, sometimes we feel, uh, a sense of assurance that may not be realistic. So we would much rather just give them an actual grade and uh, you know, a numerical grade, uh, not an ABC. Um, so we, you know, we go in and we write down everything that they're not doing right. But it isn't really about that. It's really, it's really about the educational component of it because restaurants have a lot of turnover over staff. You know, these are lower-paid, a lot of times lower-paid jobs. People don't stay in them for very long. And a lot of times it's very young people working in restaurants, maybe their first job, first job they've ever had. And probably no one ever taught them how to, you know, prepare food or how to handle food. And so that's kind of a lot of what we do is to educate the public around how to how to maintain safe food, swimming pools. Every summer, unfortunately, you know, we have the issue of a possible drowning. It seems like every summer, no matter what we do. But I think it would be a lot worse if we weren't out there making sure that the lifeguards are there, making sure that the pools, the you know, water quality is good, making sure that they have the appropriate signage and that they know what to do if in fact someone does get in trouble. I think it's interesting because we all have this image when it comes to drowning of somebody, you know, making a lot of noise and flopping around in the water. That's not how it is.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

Not at all. No. So let's talk about that a bit more. So we we started off talking about generally what the Westchester County Health Department does, what you make sure is safe, water, food. Um, and part of that is also public health, general public health. Summer is coming. So there are a lot of health, um, I guess, threats to our health during the summer, and and you're really breaking it down for us today. So you you talked about the pool, we're gonna come back to that. But let's start at a very basic level. You're in the sun. What could that lead to? What is your message to the public?

SPEAKER_01 4:58

Well, the first thing would be uh getting a sunburn, which you know, most people don't think much of a sunburning melanoma, which is skin cancer. And actually, uh every hour an American dies from melanoma. Um people who are great at greatest at risk of developing melanoma are very light-skinned people, people with blonde red hair, blue or green eyes, but anyone can get melanoma. And uh so every time you you know you get a sunburn, you cause skin damage, uh, which can ultimately lead to skin cancer. Um, I'll be honest, I myself, um, I was just shaving my leg, one legs, and I noticed a mole on uh a funny-looking mole on the bottom of my foot. And I thought, well, that's kind of interesting. So I went to the dermatologist and had biopsy, and I had a skin cancer myself. So the other thing besides putting on sunblock and you know, not trying to not get a sunburn is that we all need to check our skin regularly and our children's skin and our spouse's skin in places that they may not be able to see. Um, you know, the back of their neck, their back. Um, and any mold that has multiple colored, regular border, um just maybe it it uh it tries to break down, it won't heal. Um, you know, you should have a dermatologist take a look at it just to make sure because they may not even know themselves. They may just decide they're gonna biopsy it, but the biopsy will will tell them whether or not it's yeah, what it is.

SPEAKER_00 6:35

Is it true that the more beauty marks you have, the higher your chances are of skin cancer?

SPEAKER_01 6:41

Well, it's not so much the more you have, it's that each mole you have is its own unique risk.

SPEAKER_00 6:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 6:49

So uh, you know, it's not like you have a greater uh that each mole each of your moles has a greater risk, but simply the larger number is a greater risk.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

Aaron Powell Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 6:59

So people with a lot of moles really do need to get them checked.

SPEAKER_00 7:03

So it's uh it was only about two years ago. So Tony Aiello from Channel 2 posted on Facebook that he had gone to get a skin check and that one of them came back as needing, you know, uh he had to have a biopsy, and I believe it came back as being irregular. And I thought to myself, I was sitting here in this office and I thought, well, I haven't had a skin check in a while, I better go. And they had to remove one from the palm of my hand that was irregular. It wasn't skin cancer. But to your point, you really need to have these skin checks. They're so important.

SPEAKER_01 7:34

Because if you detect it early, like I detected mine early, I just had to have the mole removed, and that was in the story. Right. But if you wait until you know it's advanced, uh it can be fatal.

SPEAKER_00 7:46

Wow. And so when we say protect yourself from the sun, we're talking about wearing sunblock. What sort of sunblock should people be using?

SPEAKER_01 7:54

Well, I mean, you could use a uh a um SPF, SPF of at least 30, and um that's it, that's where to start. Um people use one, a hundred, but a hundred doesn't do you much more good than 30. It's really applying it before you go out, applying it regularly, reapplying it every couple of hours. Um, as a reminder, children older than two months, you can use sunscreen on, but you don't want to use it on infants less than two months of age, and they really shouldn't be out in the direct sun for a long period of time anyway. Right. Uh so it's really not so much the number as it is applying it and reapplying it.

SPEAKER_00 8:38

Okay. And what about when we see the organic, natural sunscreens? Do those work? Do you just need to buy the regular old sunscreen? You just need sunscreen.

SPEAKER_01 8:47

I don't I don't really care what brand. I don't the particulars don't really matter. It just, you know, how you apply it and how often you apply it.

SPEAKER_00 8:56

Okay. So we're putting on our sunscreen, we're we're reapplying our sunscreen. That's a big one there. And what else do we have to do? We have to stay hydrated, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:07

We do have to stay hydrated, but before we get there, I just want to remind people it's also a good idea to wear sunglasses because that can help prevent cataracts later in life. Okay. And um, you know, a hat is is useful too uh to keep sun off of your face. Um all of those things are important as well. Now I'm sorry, back to your other thing.

SPEAKER_00 9:28

No, no, you're that's an wearing a hat is important and we don't want to get skin cancer. We also don't want to get wrinkles. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 9:34

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 9:35

I mean, you know, damage to your skin certainly cause you to wrinkle. So so we're putting on sunscreen, we're out in the sun, we're wearing our hat. We have to stay hydrated as well. How important? I mean, sometimes you hear people say, Oh, I never drank water when I was a kid and I'm fine. But that's we we can't do that anymore.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

Well, you know, your body needs water anyway, but certainly when you're out in the sun, you do want to stay well hydrated. Uh I mean, people often get confused between like getting a heat stroke or uh getting heat exhaustion. I think the easy way to remember those terms is stroke is always bad. No matter what caused the stroke, it's bad. It's always bad. So, yeah, so we don't want anyone to get a heat stroke, and so one of the best things they can do to prevent that is to stay hydrated. And that's not drinking anything fancy, it's just regular water. Water. What you don't want to drink is alcohol, because alcohol can make the chance of heat stroke, heat exhaustion even greater.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

So regular water. Just tap water is fine.

SPEAKER_00 10:41

Okay. And another one that comes up quite a bit in the summer is ticks. We've got a obviously this is a big problem in Westchester. Some years it seems worse than others. Talk to me about ticks. What should we be doing to protect ourselves against Lyme disease?

SPEAKER_01 10:57

Well, this year is an exceptional year because we had so much snow and the snow stayed on the ground. And instead of actually killing the ticks, it protected the ticks. So everyone is complaining that we've got an awful lot of ticks this year. So uh unlike how I normally dress, which I love to wear black, black is not what you want to wear when you are going out uh for a walk. If you're taking your children out for a walk or going out for a walk, the best thing to do is wear light-colored clothing. If you're going for a hike, uh wear light-colored pants and pull your socks up around the bottom of the pants. Makes it harder for the ticks to get under the uh pant leg and onto your skin. Um so uh, and when you're done with whatever activity, you're gonna drink your water, take your water, you're gonna use an insect repellent before you go. So before you get dressed, it's a good idea to use something, you know, with uh with uh that will repel insects and ticks are part of that. Is that DEET? Do you mean DEET? DEET, yeah. Okay. Exactly. And so we're gonna put our deet on, we're gonna put our clothes on, we're gonna go out for our activity, and when we're done, we're going to, within two hours of finishing our activity, it's a really good idea within that time frame to really look for ticks. So if you've been out hiking in the woods, you don't want to come home, go through your whole house with the clothes that you wore. Best to take your clothes that you wore on that long hike off, put them in the wash, and then take an examine yourself, have someone else take a look at your back areas that you can't see, uh the creases behind your knee, uh, you know, um uh groin area, any place there's hair, uh, your scalp, underarms, you want to look places where ticks might hide out. And if you can find a tick within a couple hours and remove them, your chances of getting any one of a number of tick-borne diseases is significantly reduced. Now, if you do find a tick, you don't want to just yank it off because the head of the tick can stay stuck into the skin and become infected. So you want to get a nice pair of tweezers, and either you or have somebody else do it, but you want to grab the head of the tick, apply uh consistent pressure, and the mouth parts will release, and then you can take the tick away without leaving part of the tick stuck in your skin.

SPEAKER_00 13:32

Right, right. That's the scariest part. Um, and unfortunately, to your point about the snow, uh I've already pulled ticks off of children and dogs and all the things, and it's scary when it it's always panic when you find one, even though, you know.

SPEAKER_01 13:50

I agree with you. I mean, the very first time I took, we have a little five-pound Yorkie, and uh I took Beignet out for a walk, came back in, and I said to my husband, Well, you know, you're gonna need to check me for ticks. And he says, I think you have one on your neck. I thought he was kidding me. Oh gosh. You know, I was like, you know, this is not funny. He's like, No, really, you've got one on your and I had one right on my neck. Oh my gosh. And uh so yeah, so it was my very first outing, just hadn't been in the house five minutes. And so they're really out there this year.

SPEAKER_00 14:22

They are, they are, and sometimes, I mean, unfortunately, you mentioned going for a walk and wearing the socks a certain way, but for a lot of Westchester, it's just going in the yard. Right. So you're going in the yard, you're barbecuing, and we have wooded properties. If you're, you know, ha live in the northern part of the county for sure, and and there they are. And um, it's scary. And so if if somebody finds a tick on themselves, pulls it off, gets the head out, what do they do next? Do they monitor it?

SPEAKER_01 14:51

Well, if it was just, you know, if it was just you just went out, you found it, you pulled it off, you know, uh, there's really not much that you need to do. But if it was engorged for a while, you pull it off, um, you might want to, if you get any symptoms at all, obviously I would call your doctor.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

Absolutely. What I always do when I pull them off, um, my son just had one on his leg the other day. We pulled it off and I circle it with a Sharpie. Just so we remember where it was and we monitor it, and thankfully it's been fine so far. But Lyme disease is scary.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

Well, you know, Lyme Connecticut's not very far away, and that's what Lyme disease was named after.

SPEAKER_00 15:29

Not at all. Um okay, so we've got that covered. We have what to now we know what to do when we pull a tick off. Um, water safety. This is a big one. So you we started talking about this a little bit in the beginning, people going to pools, beaches, lakes. Um what are some basic well, what does the health department do, first of all, to make sure that those bodies of water are safe?

SPEAKER_01 15:53

Well, we have inspectors that go out and visit all the time, do inspections. Um, you know, when we have uh from years of observation of our beaches, we know that when we get a big rain, uh we can get coal form bacteria in the water, so that's why the beaches get closed. People always wonder why there's a rain. We close the beaches. It's because the water quality might not be uh what we would want people to swim in. So we're out there, you know, doing our best, and the facilities are doing their best, and we need the parents and guardians of young children to do their part as well so that everyone has a safe and fun summer. Unfortunately, not every child can swim. Um and um so a lot of children may not have the ability to be in water safely, and so I would encourage parents to start your children with swimming lessons early and to make sure that they are good swimmers. It doesn't mean that you can never drown, but certainly it does re significantly reduce the risk of drowning. But the major thing that parents can do besides ensuring their children have swimming lessons is to observe them.

SPEAKER_00 17:08

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 17:08

I mean, some of the unfortunately, some of the bad situations that we've had during my tenure as commissioners, some of the drownings we've had were because most of them were because everybody thought somebody else was watching the child, and in fact no one was watching the child.

SPEAKER_00 17:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:25

Yeah. So we often suggest that when you're going with children, there should be one person designated to watch that child, to watch the children. And that's their only job. They're not to do anything else. They're to just keep eyes on the kids and make sure that they're safe. If they need to go to the bathroom, if they need to go get a drink, they hand off that job to somebody else and they ensure that the person knows you're it now. You know, there's even a lanyard program where we have like a lanyard that goes around the neck, and the person wearing the lanyard knows my job is to watch the kids. Because kids will simply slide under the water. Um and uh it's it's tragic and it's sad, and in a couple of minutes they can be gone. The other thing that people can do is ensure that they know CPR. Because what if you're at a pool and your child does go under the water and does have a near drowning and they pull them out?

SPEAKER_00 18:22

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 18:23

Do you want to just stand there and do nothing?

SPEAKER_00 18:25

No, yes.

SPEAKER_01 18:25

No, you want to be prepared to act, and CPR can certainly save a life.

SPEAKER_00 18:31

Um, so so that those are great pieces of advice to give for a parent to have the one job. They're not barbecuing, they're not doing anything else, they're watching the kids in the water. And to your point, like you said earlier, from the movies, everyone thinks that drowning is this big dramatic event, and it's not, it's very quiet.

SPEAKER_01 18:51

Sometimes, I mean, uh I've watched footage of pools where drowning, when you know, when we're looking at a drowning, we investigate. Every time there's a drowning, we investigate what happens. And sometimes I've seen, I've looked at the footage, and you'll see people around the person who's drowning, and people don't even recognize that they are. And so it is a quite it can be a very quiet scenario. Um, but certainly when you pull that person out, you know, you want to do CPR right away. Um, but the best thing to do is have eyes on, have have eyes on the child.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

And the other thing, too, to mention is that floaties are not a parent. That does not take away from the fact that somebody has to be watching the child.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

Absolutely. Floaties, rings. I remember uh when my children were young, uh, we were at the pool one day, and this little child, about three years old, had one of those rings around their waist, and he jumped in the pool, and you know, they're they're heavy at the top, but their legs don't weigh much. And so he ended up in the pool head down, and the ring was keeping his head underwater, and his feet were flailing, but he couldn't get himself to turn back over. And I actually jumped in and flipped him over. But if I hadn't, he would have drowned because he couldn't make himself, he couldn't get himself over again. So, no, you know, they're all helpful, but there's nothing like supervision to make sure that children stay safe.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

Absolutely, absolutely. So, another summer topic that I know we deal with every summer here at the county is rabies. Um, animals are out, they're roaming around, they're getting exposed to rabies, and then unfortunately sometimes they bite people. Um, so what do we need to know about rabies?

SPEAKER_01 20:41

Well, I think the first thing that most people probably don't know is that once by the time you have symptoms of rabies, there is nothing to do to save your life. Rabies is uniformly fatal once symptoms have have begun.

SPEAKER_00 20:57

Aaron Ross Powell That's terrifying, and I feel like people do not understand that.

SPEAKER_01 21:01

And that's why when there is an animal bite, we we ask for people, first of all, if if you know if your child gets bit, if your pet gets bit, if it was an animal that, like a cat or dog that's owned by somebody, you want to ask them for the rabies record of that animal. You want to call your doctor and give them that information, and then you want to call the health department. Because the health department will make sure that the animal, whether it was a cat, a dog, uh, that their rabies vaccines are up to date. And if not, then we will put that animal into quarantine so that if the animal becomes sick, uh we can do testing. And um and so that's really important, uh, especially if the animal was not vaccinated. You want the animal to be contained, observed, they become sick within a 14 day quarantine time. Uh then we test them and everything is good. If we don't have the animal, then that person may end up having to take rabies vaccine because we don't know that the animal that they were bitten by, if it's a cat or dog, we would want those records because we want to make sure. But if there's no record, obviously you're going to have to get vaccinated for rabies because you just can't take the risk because it's uniformly fatal. Wild animals is a totally different story. And so if it's like, let's say that you're home and you're then you're sleeping, and the next morning you wake up and you find a bat in the bathroom. Anyone who is sleeping in the area of that bat uh would need to get rabies vaccine because the bite of a bat is so uh the teeth are so small, you might not feel it, it might not need a puncture wound, it might not bleed. Oh my god. So you could be bitten and not know it. Not every bat has rabies. And if you are lucky enough to catch the bat, and if you want to know how to do that, you can call us and we'll be happy to tell you. If you catch the bat and you call us, we'll make sure that it's tested free of charge. Uh, and then you'll know I either need to take the rabies vaccine or I don't. But a lot of times what happens if people find the bat, they catch the bat, and then they take it outside and let it go. Once you let it go, you're taking rabies vaccinations. Anyone who was in the house who slept in the area where the bat was would have to be vaccinated. And that's a long process. It is a long process, not a very pleasant process. Um, but that's just how it is. Also, if it's a wild animal that bites you, you know, like last year, if you remember we had those coyote coyote. Yes, in Eastchester. Yeah, yep. Yeah, you know, bit several dogs, bit some people. Um anytime you get bit by a wild animal like that, if we can't capture the animal or ensure that this is the coyote that bit you, you know, which we might not be able to, um, then we have to have them vaccinated.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

Yeah. And that of course is better than dying, right? Better than dying from rabies. But it's uh we're making this summer sound like a very scary time. This is just this is just what do you do?

SPEAKER_01 24:16

You keep us all safe. We keep us all safe. You know, we want people to have a great time in the pool. We want them to go out and have wonderful food at fairs and events, you know. We want them to go hiking in the woods and enjoy the beautiful parks that we have in Westchester. We just want them to do all of those things and continue to be healthy and be able to continue to enjoy their lives afterwards. And so that's that's our job.

SPEAKER_00 24:43

That's our job. And we're so thankful that you do that job. And you've taught us a lot today. And in just a few months, we'll be getting ready for back to school vaccines. So we have to have you come back because that's a whole other program. It is.

SPEAKER_01 24:56

I would just, you know, right now, since we're getting, you know, we're not into back to school yet, but now it's a good time to be looking at shot records and trying to figure out when school starts, what do what vaccines do my children need? Have that conversation with with the doctor. And I would just uh also say in advance of school restarting and everyone needing their vaccines that we have clinic. We have a clinic in White Plains and we have a clinic in Yonkers, and we provide vaccines free of charge to adults or children that either don't have health insurance or they have health insurance, but their health insurance doesn't cover vaccines. So, you know, now would be a good time to start scheduling those because once school starts, the appointments fill up and it can be hard to get in. And you need them to go to school? You have to have them to go to school in New York. And it isn't just going to school, you know. Unfortunately, take a look at what's happening in measles, just around the country. I mean, there's been m multiple cases. I mean, more than 2,000 cases of measles in the last in the last year, the last year. So measles um unfortunately totally is pro totally preventable by a vaccine, but a lot of people um aren't vaccinated. And unfortunately, this is a disease that can kill you. Um so good idea to check those records, and we'll talk more about that closer to time. But and you're a pediatrician, I want to point that out. I am a pediatrician by training, and I think that uh, well, there's no doubt, vaccines have done more to save lives than any other invention that man has come up with. And um, it's a good thing because that's why I chose pediatrics. You know, pediatrics is fun. You get to play with kids, it's all about preventing disease. Yeah. And public health is all about preventing disease. And as a physician, I'd so much rather, you know, prevent someone from becoming sick than have to treat them once they are.

SPEAKER_00 27:06

Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, again, thank you so much for keeping us healthy, keeping us safe. And I have to say, I think we just made a lot of kids upset by talking about back to school when uh the money even probably didn't even get out of school yet. But but thank you again, and we really appreciate it. And we'll have you on again very soon. All right.

SPEAKER_01 27:25

Well, thank you guys so much, and I hope everybody has a wonderful, exciting, and healthy summer.