Study Finds County's Residents in Good Health

By PAMELA J. JOHNSON

Nov. 12, 1999 12 AM PT

SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

Ventura County residents are among the healthiest people in Southern California, according to a USC study released Thursday.

Local residents are less likely than residents in other counties to give birth to sick babies, die of cancer-related or heart diseases or fall victim to homicide, the study said.

Ventura County also ranks among the lowest in cases of sexually transmitted and other infectious diseases.

The report, known as the Health Atlas of Southern California, shows Ventura County tying for first with Santa Barbara and Orange counties in meeting 10 of 15 health status indicators.

“It doesn’t surprise me at all,” said Robert Levin, medical director of the county’s Public Health Services. “We’re blessed with a wonderful climate. And we’re not overly urban, but we’re not too isolated. We’re at a happy medium.”

Officials at the University of Southern California, who spent 18 months tracking health trends in eight counties from San Diego to Santa Barbara, attributed the well-being of Ventura County’s 727,000 residents mainly to the area’s affluence and demographics.

Of those studied, the lowest percentage of poor people lived in the county in 1995, the most recent year measured: In Ventura County, 9.8% of the population was considered in poverty, compared with 13.8% in Santa Barbara County and 22.7% in Los Angeles County.

Officials also attributed the strong vitality of local residents to relatively good access to health care services.

“It shows the willingness of Ventura County to spend money on developing a very good health care system,” said Michael Dear, director of the Southern California Studies Center, which produced the 104-page study. “And because Ventura County is smaller and more affluent compared with other places, it’s easier for Ventura to meet health care needs.”

The center was created after the 1992 Los Angeles riots to study such issues as welfare dependency, child neglect and crime.

This is the third year the center has conducted its health atlas.

San Bernardino and Riverside counties were ranked lowest, meeting only four of the 15 goals. Other areas studied were Imperial, San Diego and Los Angeles counties.

Researchers tracked trends in child health, sexually transmitted and infectious diseases and mortality rates. Some of the results for Ventura County showed that of 100,000 residents:

* An average of nine had AIDS between 1995 and 1997. The leader, Imperial County, had 7.08 cases of AIDS per 100,000 residents.

* An average of 13.1 suffered from gonorrhea between 1995 and 1997, ranking Ventura County lowest of the eight counties. Los Angeles County had the highest average, with 67.47 per 100,000.

* An average of 102.7 had cancer between 1995 and 1997 in Ventura County, ranking it second lowest after Santa Barbara, where 78.3 people in 100,000 had the disease.

* An average of 4.7 were homicide victims between 1995 and 1997, ranking the second lowest after Santa Barbara County, where there was an average of 4.3 homicides. The greatest homicide rate was in Los Angeles County, where an average of 17.7 people out of 100,000 were killed.

* And of 1,000 live births between 1995 and 1997, an average of 5.4 people died in Ventura County, ranking it the second lowest in infant deaths after San Diego and Imperial counties, which tied with an infant death rate of 4.9 per 1,000 births.

Although Ventura County may be one of the healthiest areas in the region, it falls behind the national average in some categories, the study said. For instance, per 100,000 Ventura County residents, an average of 10.35 had tuberculosis during the study period, compared with the national average of 7.42 per 100,000.

But none of the eight counties achieved the study’s goal of 3.5 cases of tuberculosis per 100,000 people. Experts attributed the trend of too many patients who refused treatment, the emergence of drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis and high immigration rates.

The number of doctors in Ventura County also fell below the national average, with 190 doctors per 100,000 patients, compared with a national average of 247.

The county ranked among the lowest in that category, with only Imperial and Riverside counties trailing behind.

Also, Ventura County fails to provide the same level of acute care hospital beds as other counties, the study found. In 1997, there were 157 beds per 100,000 residents, scoring above only Imperial County, which provided 129 beds. The county scored well below the statewide rate of 247 beds per 100,000 residents.

The number of people insured in the county also trailed behind other counties, the state and the nationwide averages, the study said. In 1997, 10% of the county’s population was covered by Medicaid insurance, contrasted with 15.6% of California’s population and 12.5% of the national population.

That same year, 10.9% was covered by Medicare, compared with 11.3% in California and 14% in the nation.

“We can’t afford to become complacent,” said Stephen Ryan, a top official at USC’s Keck School of Medicine. “While the economy is in a boom, the number of uninsured Americans is increasing at an amazing rate. There’s a great risk that it will get worse.”

Dear said the study was meant to underscore the problems and prompt public awareness.

“This is a road map for the future of health care policy in Southern California,” Dear said. “Where you live matters to your health.”

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Ventura County Health Statistics

Infant deaths (per 1,000 live births): 5.4

Late or no prenatal care (percent of live births): 12.0

Low birth weight infants (percent of live births): 5.2

Births to teens (per 1,000 females, age 15-17): 28.2

Gonorrhea (per 1,000 people): 13.1

AIDS cases (per 100,000 people): 9.0

Tuberculosis (per 100,000 people): 10.4

Coronary heart disease (per 100,000 people): 79.2