A community’s health status may be assessed through the morbidity cases in a given period of time. With the use of this, a community health plan may be formulated to address particular health problems that may be related to the cause of morbidity in a community. In Tampilisan, the Rural Health Unit is currently using a computer database that records every consultation which can also classify entries by barangay and date of consultation. With the use of this database, the researchers were able to extract morbidity cases specific for New Barili for the years 2017 and 2018.

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Table 1 shows the top 10 Morbidity cases for the year 2017 as tallied from the database. Also shown in detail in Appendix B the age groups who consulted for such diseases or illnesses. While Table 2 enumerates the top morbidity cases for the first half of year 2018. It can be observed that from the year 2017 to year 2018, the most common cause of consultations from barangay New Barili is Upper Respiratory Tract Infection (URTI). A total of 70 cases of URTI was reported from the the RHU database for the year 2017 only. From January 2018 to July 2018, the database recorded about 17 URTI (unspecified and viral) cases. These were also supported by the survey done in 175 households last July 2018 where 95 households reported  that cough and colds was a frequent complaint in their family from 2017 to 2018.

Aside from the consistent findings of URTI as a common cause of morbidity, among the top morbidity cases are Hypertension types I and II. Hypertension cases totals to about 35 cases seen and examined at the Rural Health Unit in the year 2017 to July 2018. Through the house-to-house survey done, it has been noted that there are 39 hypertensives in the barangay. Only 33 of them are enrolled in the Anti-hypertension Program of the Rural Health Unit.  The remaining 6 individuals not enrolled in the program opted to herbal treatment or had access to private clinics. The numbers may be attributed by the fact that 64% of the hypertensive individuals in New Barili have low adherence to maintenance medications as revealed in the survey.

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It is also good to note that a number of individuals were diagnosed with Urinary Tract Infection (UTI). As reported in the Rural Health Unit’s database, 8 out of 14 individuals who had UTI in the year 2017 were females (see Appendix B). For the first half of the year 2018, UTI ranks 2nd with 10 individuals diagnosed. Urinary Tract Infection is also noted in the usual illnesses complained by the respondents in New Barili, with a total of 8 individuals. Usual causes of urinary tract infection include not urinating often enough and wiping from back to front after a bowel movement (CDC, 2015). Thus, there is also a need to educate families on the importance of proper hygiene that may also help in lessening the incidence of UTI.

Ranking 6th in the list of top morbidity cases is the Post-Traumatic Wound Infection in the year 2017 with 10 cases and with only 2 cases for the first half of 2018. It can be inferred that these cases might be related to the how much the people in the barangay of New Barili know basic first aid treatment which only amounts to 20 households out of 122 households interviewed