State Draws Healthy Profile for Area Residents : Statistics: Disease-prevention programs, high incomes and clinics are credited, but study sees room for improvement in the county.

Ventura County residents are among the healthiest in California, and the county is exceeding federal goals set for 2000 in a wide variety of public health measurements, from infant mortality to deaths from car crashes, according to a new state study.

“We’re doing very well,” said Elizabeth Trebow, the county’s manager of health statistics.

Trebow credited the county’s good health to vigorous disease-prevention programs, the relatively high income of county residents and the availability of care at the county’s public health clinics.

Still, the report shows that the county has room for progress in fighting tuberculosis. Ventura County averaged 7.9 tuberculosis cases per 100,000 residents from 1991 to 1993, while the federal goal for 2000 is 3.5 cases per 100,000 residents.

Trebow said the county public health department is “working very hard at that,” tracking every case, and that the rate should improve in a few years.

The county also failed to meet federal goals in ensuring that mothers get prenatal care early in their pregnancies. Eighteen percent of mothers who gave birth in Ventura County from 1991 to 1993 did not receive medical treatment during the first trimester of pregnancy.

The federal target for 2000 calls for only 10% of births to happen after “late” prenatal care.

Late prenatal care, however, did not seem to have an impact on the county’s infant mortality rate. At 6.8 infant deaths per 1,000 births, the rate is lower than the federal goal for 2000 and lower than the overall rate for California.

Indeed, the state Department of Health Services 1995 County Health Status Profiles report shows Ventura County far below federal goals--and the rate for California overall--in its rate of deaths from vehicle crashes, homicide, suicide, lung cancer, breast cancer and heart disease.

The county was also below California rates for deaths due to strokes and drugs, and for the incidence of syphilis, low birth weight babies and teen-age pregnancy.

A total of 3.8% of births in Ventura County were to girls younger than 17, and 5.5% of babies born in the county weighed less than 5 1/2 pounds, which is considered a low birth weight.

To reduce the importance of random statistical fluctuations in counties with small populations, the rates are based on three-year averages of reported deaths. In most cases, the years covered in the 1995 report are from 1991 to 1993.

Also, the rates were age-adjusted if needed.

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County Health Profile Ventura County is healthier than most counties in California and exceeds federal goals for 2000 in several categories, according to figures averaged over a three-year period.

Ventura Federal goal County State year 2000 AIDS cases per 100,000 population 11.8 36.7 39.2 Infant deaths per 1,000 births 6.8 7.0 7.5 Deaths from coronary heart disease per 100,000 population 85.5 106.5 100.0 Deaths from homicide per 100,000 population 6.1 13.7 7.2

Source: State Department of Health Services County Health Status Profile