E-Mail Express

Name:

Company:

E-mail:

Phone:

Sonoma County health panel proposes broad new campaign

SONOMA COUNTY, July 22, 2008 – Health Action, established last year to analyze health and health care problems and offer solutions, has proposed a broad three-step approach for making Sonoma County a healthier place to live by the year 2020.

The proposal will be the subject of an upcoming series of public meetings.

“A 2020 Vision for Sonoma County” is the product of nine months of study by the 31 members of Health Action, which was established by the Board of Supervisors last August. Health Action is composed of a cross-section of key public and private Sonoma County leaders in health, government, business, education, social services, labor and industry.

“We have a plan of action that we believe will help Sonoma County become one of the healthiest places to live in California,” said Supervisor Tim Smith, who co-chairs Health Action along with Rita Scardaci, Director of the county Department of Health Services.

“Health Action’s 2020 Vision calls for fundamental changes in how we live. The plan would go a long way toward making Sonoma County a healthier place to live,” said Mr. Smith. “But to make Health Action’s vision successful will require the participation of the entire county. That’s the challenge we are hoping everyone will embrace.”

Health Action is proposing a three-step approach to improving health and health care delivery. The Priorities for Action call for:

* Ensuring that all residents have access to affordable healthy food and adopt healthy eating habits

* Creating a culture that embraces physical activity and supports walking, bicycling and other forms of healthy physical activity on the job, in neighborhoods and in schools

* Ensuring that all residents have a medical home for primary care and other preventive medical services

Health Action’s vision was developed by the 31-member group and refined by two separate task forces that included additional representatives from the community. A health care delivery system task force focused on looking for ways to expand access to prevention-focused primary care for all residents. A community health task force focused on identifying community changes to make sure all residents have access to healthy food, eat healthy meals and engage in regular physical activity.

Ms. Scardaci said Health Action’s proposal to increase physical activity by residents may require extra efforts to make sure neighborhoods have safe sidewalks and nearby parks and for employers to support healthy physical activity on the job.

Ms. Scardaci also said special efforts will be required to ensure access to affordable and healthy food for all residents.

“We need to encourage stores located in areas not served by large supermarkets to offer their customers healthy fruits and vegetables and not packaged, fatty foods normally associated with small food retailers,” she said.

She also said hunger relief services may need to be expanded to provide healthy food for low-income families.

Finally, Ms. Scardaci said, steps are needed to ensure enough primary care doctors and other health workers are available to provide preventative care to all residents.

“By making sure everyone has a medical home, a trusted source of patient-focused care, we can make tremendous progress in improving the overall health of the community and take much of the financial burden off the emergency departments of all our hospitals,” she said.

Mr. Smith and Ms. Scardaci emphasized that the 2020 Vision and the initial action plan are not a cure-all and do not directly address the entire range of health issues facing Sonoma County, including rising costs of services, drugs and health care premiums; low Medicare reimbursement rates; and other issues not easily addressed at the local level.

But they said that the Health Action proposal will help deal with rising rates of obesity and diabetes, create a healthier community, make more efficient use of existing health care resources and health care dollars, provide for an aging population and potentially raise a generation of children who will embrace a healthy lifestyle as naturally and automatically as they fasten their seatbelts and wear bicycle helmets.

“If we do this right, the kids entering first grade this fall will be light years ahead of us in terms of health know-how when they graduate from high school in the year 2020,” said Mr. Smith.

For more information on Health Action and a list of public meetings and locations, go to www.sonomahealthaction.org.