California County Plan Seeks To Reduce Racial Health Disparities
The Solano County, Calif., African-American Disparities Elimination Project on Tuesday was expected to present the county board of supervisors with a plan to reduce health disparities affecting the black community, according to the Vacaville Reporter.
The project assembled community members and care providers, who produced the plan during an 18-month period. Solano County Health and Social Services, NorthBay Healthcare, Kaiser Permanente and Sutter Solano Medical Center all contributed to the plan.
The report cites several racial disparities, including that blacks in the county are twice as likely to die from stroke, twice as likely as others to die from diabetes and three times as likely to die from prostate cancer as other men. In addition, blacks have an infant mortality rate twice as high as other races.
The plan is said to call for promoting personal behavior to improve wellness, increasing family and community involvement, improving care quality and creating polices that encourage better health, according to the Reporter (Bernardini, Vacaville Reporter, 5/7).