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If you live in El
Dorado County and you enjoy good health, you are
in good company.
That's the conclusion of a just-released report on
the health of county residents. The report, dubbed
"Measuring Our Health: The Health Status Report of
El Dorado County 2008," shows how people who live
in the county are doing on 43 health-related
indicators, compared with neighboring counties and
California as a whole.
In many of the report's key health outcomes, El
Dorado County residents finish in the top tier of
California counties.
As a group, we who live in El Dorado County
experience fewer deaths due to heart disease,
stroke, diabetes and homicide than other
Californians, and we suffer from fewer sexually
transmitted infections. More of our children have
health insurance, fewer die in infancy, and fewer
live in poverty than kids statewide.
But the picture of health in El Dorado County
isn't all peaches and cream, according to the
report. We could do much better in several
important areas:
-- Adult obesity: For the first time, a larger
fraction of El Dorado County adults (57 percent)
are overweight or obese than adults statewide.
This puts us at greater risk of heart disease,
diabetes, cancer, arthritis and premature death.
-- Certain cancers: Our death rate from melanoma,
a serious type of skin cancer related to excess
sun exposure, is among the highest in the state.
Prostate cancer also causes an excess number of
deaths in the county.
-- Motor vehicle accidents: Our death rate from
automobile crashes remains well above the state
average, particularly for young adults. These
deaths account for more years of life lost under
age 65 than any other cause in the county.
-- Violent and abusive behavior: El Dorado
County's rate of substantiated child abuse has
been steadily rising in recent years, now passing
the statewide rate at a level that is roughly
double that seen in 2000. Reported violence
against domestic partners has also increased in
recent years, overtaking the statewide rate for
the first time.
-- Suicide: El Dorado County's suicide rate
remains substantially higher than the state as a
whole and exceeds national targets for suicide by
a factor of three. County residents are six times
more likely to die from suicide than from
homicide.
-- Prenatal care: Fewer pregnant women are
receiving prenatal care in the county now than in
recent years, despite proven benefits to mother
and child. Only about two-thirds of the county's
expectant mothers now obtain adequate prenatal
care, which puts El Dorado in the lowest quartile
of counties statewide.
-- Immunization coverage: A smaller fraction of
children entering kindergarten in El Dorado County
are fully immunized against key
vaccine-preventable diseases than in all but seven
other California counties. Our immunization rates
now are so low that epidemic spread of these
diseases is likely among school-aged children if
these infections are reintroduced from outside the
county.
The report makes interesting reading, and I know
it will be a valuable resource for setting
priorities for public health action in our county.
An online version is available now at
www.co.el-dorado.ca.us/publichealth.
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