In the fall of 1999, a decision was made to develop a website for the St. Charles County Department of Community Health and the Environment. The primary goal of the site was to create a presence on the web that would provide information and services to residents of St. Charles County and other visitors, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. A secondary goal was to provide a comprehensive public health resource by using a combination of onsite information and links to reliable external agency and organization websites. These resources were to be designed in such a way that adults, students and medical professionals would find them useful.
Much work followed the decision to create the site with intensive content development by staff. Content was forwarded to the web design consultant and as each page was created a review followed with revisions as needed. In May of 2000 the website was brought online and hundreds of pages of content reflected the many hours of dedicated work by Department staff.
A full-blown publicity campaign was launched and it was not long before visits to the site began to steadily increase. By the first anniversary of the site launch, May of 2001, traffic had increased with an average of 4,000 visits a month during the first 5 months of 2001.
Since that time, traffic has steadily increased and most recently during October of 2005 there were 27,993 visits by 10,577 unique visitors. Information accessed by visitors varies from always popular content (birth and death record information, recycling information and pet adoption pages, restaurant inspection scores and smoke-free dining) to pages containing information reflecting current events (earthquake-New Madrid Fault pages, flu-shot locations, severe weather and family emergency preparedness information and links). For a wonderful explanation of how to evaluate website traffic as well as a monthly statistical reports with more detailed information you can go to http://www.scchealth.org/docs/site_stats/index.html. If you would like to see a more detailed analysis please email me at coplec@lpha.dhss.mo.gov and request access.
The dedicated "Resources and Links" page is a popular resource. It can be found near the top of the left-side menu on the home page (www.scchealth.org) or can be accessed directly at http://www.scchealth.org/docs/doche/doche_links.html. There are links to many useful and interesting sites. The "Research Aids" section is a popular resource that is frequently accessed.
Finally, the website features an Online Community Health Assessment Survey. This area was designed to collect primary community health data to supplement secondary (statistical) data resources all of which are used in major community health assessments that are performed every three years. As you enter the survey area, there is a detailed explanation of the purpose of the survey. This format has now been adopted with permission by many local public health agencies in Missouri and by other health departments in far away places including Colorado, Canada and New Zealand. If you haven't filled out the survey we would urge you to do so. You don not have to be a resident of St. Charles County to complete the survey.
Because of the size of the website it is not possible to do more than scratch the surface on the limited space available in this monthly feature and fortunately I don't need. The best way to understand and benefit from the site is to explore it personally. If you do, I think you will enjoy your visit and the resources you find. They are continually available to you whenever you have a few minutes or a need to visit. We appreciate feedback and urge you to feel free to submit feedback using one of the many comment links found throughout the pages. The Internet has given us a cost-effective way to expand our service and our hours. For all those who make a first visit or who have visited in the past, we thank you for your support!