Health and Human Services Action Plan

Challenge

San Joaquin Valley communities experience poor health status and limited access to health care services. Healthy People: 2010, published in 2000 by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,set the national priorities around health and health care with the goals of increasing life expectancy and quality of life. Comparing the 10 leading health indicators with health status, Valley residents appear to be inferior to California as a whole on six indicators: adult overweight and obesity, adult tobacco use, motor vehicle deaths, flu shots for elders, access to prenatal care, and air quality.

In addition to these health outcomes, there are many issues in which the San Joaquin Valley needs to make improvements.

• Each county has Medically Underserved Areas and Populations (MUA/P) designations.
• The region is plagued by the social consequences of alcohol and substance abuse.
• The rate of methamphetamine and other drug use and availability are the highest in the state, leading to significant negative impacts on its residents.
• An investment in foster care early intervention and prevention is needed. The failure to do so could continue these current statistics of youth who eventually emancipate from foster care: 75% work below grade level, 50% do not complete high school, 45% are unemployed, 33% are arrested, 30% are on welfare, and 25% are homeless.
• Each county has experienced decreasing numbers of relative foster care placements. In September 2001, each county averaged 36.75% relative placement for first entries to care; by March 2005, the average had dropped to 29.6%.

Indicators

• Improved access to primary care physicians, specialists and other allied health care professionals
• Increased use of telemedicine
• Improved primary health indicators including overweight/obesity, childhood asthma and diabetes and coronary heart disease
• Decrease in the number of uninsured
• Decreased drug-related convictions
• Increased long-term abstinence from methamphetamines
• Decreased caseload for children and adults requiring welfare services
• Increased relative placements

Goals and Objectives

Goal 1: Develop comprehensive education and training systems to meet the health care worker shortage in the region.

Objective A: Establish a UC Merced medical school within 10 years.
Objective B: Establish Central Valley Nursing Education Consortium.

Goal 2: Enhance access to appropriate health care services and improved public health management.

Objective A: Provide incentives for difficult to recruit health and medical professionals.
Objective B: Enhance public health management capabilities.
Objective C: Develop a regional plan to address the needs of the uninsured.
Objective D: Improve delivery of health care services through the use of information technology infrastructure and services.

Goal 3: Develop comprehensive methamphetamine education and treatment programs throughout the Central Valley.

Objective A: Establish an ongoing collaborative partnership of local, state and federal representatives.
Objective B: Begin implementation of prevention and treatment modalities across the region.

Goal 4: Support and promote proactive foster care prevention.

Objective A: Decrease foster care placement changes when relative placements are available.
Objective B: Support stable and continuous foster care prevention services in the Valley.

Goal 5: Develop and propose alternative evaluation methods for state distribution of new grant resources.

Objective A: Develop a methodology for proposal evaluation that considers county socioeconomic conditions.

Objective B: The HHS Work Group will act as a change agent to encourage state adoption of a more equitable proposal review process.