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Health & Fitness

Health Board Member At Odds with State Agency Guidance

The November 4th Board of Health Meeting will set policy that, it's expected, will attend to residents sleep health, and not issues outside the Board's purview.

Dr. John Waterbury remarked at the October 7 Board of Health meeting that the 8 hour wind turbine curfew policy adopted by the Board of Selectmen should be adequate (http://www.falmouthmass.us/meeting.php?depkey=health&number=5956).  Unfortunately, the meeting minutes do not cite the peer reviewed supportive study materials from which Dr. Waterbury no doubt justified his position.

However, the Executive Office of Health and Human Services (EOHHS), a division of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH), holds that less than 10 hours of sleep per day for children is unhealthy.  (~ Get More and Better Quality Sleep ~ http://www.mass.gov/eohhs/gov/departments/dph/programs/community-health/mass-in-motion/kids-health/)

The EOHHS has adopted healthy sleep interval guidelines, and is one of many DPH divisions that distribute health resource information to all local boards of health across the state.  

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It’s very concerning that during the Board’s wind turbine/sleep health discussion no other board member contended Dr. Waterbury’s remark, or even interjected any reference to the state sleep interval guidelines for children.

I quite hope the Falmouth Health Agent provides the Board with the necessary state reference material and guidance regarding healthy sleep.  An appropriate sleep period policy will then have a better opportunity to be predicated on safeguarding resident’s health, rather than securing town revenue certainty. 

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