General Health
In Sonoma County, 87% of residents report having a good, very good or excellent health status, slightly higher than the 82% of residents in California who report the same.1 In Sonoma County, 93.8% of residents report having health insurance, 1% more than the rest of California.2 Fortunately, the Affordable Care Act/Covered California will likely lower the number of uninsured and future reports should tell us more about the impact on the community.3
Lung Health
Approximately 11% of Sonoma County adults are current smokers, the same percentage of adult smokers in California.4 Healthy Sonoma reports an increase in the percentage of adults who smoke from 15% to 12% from 2011 to 2017.5 According to the California Student Tobacco Survey, in 2008 14.6% of youth reported ever smoking but in 2012 only 10.5% of youth reported ever smoking.6 Men are likely to smoke than women (16.7 % vs 12.6%), and when looking at race and ethnicity, African Americans report higher rates of smoking than Whites and Latinos as well as the overall average.7
Air pollution from daily particulate matter has remained consistently below that in California, and in 2018, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) classified Sonoma County’s air quality as “good” using their Air Quality Index.8
According to the 2018 Sonoma County Health Status Profile, among all leading causes of death lung disease is the second-highest killer of county residents.9
Lung Cancer
When addressing all causes of cancer in Sonoma, incidence of lung and bronchial cancer are second only to prostate cancer.10 Out of all leading causes of death in the county, lung cancer is fifth overall.11 Mortality rates follow the same trends when compared to California, but lung and bronchial cancer move above prostate cancer as the leading cause of cancer mortality and the age-adjusted mortality rate for lung cancer was 30.4/100,000 persons between 2014-2016.12 Fortunately, the rate is lower than California (28.9/100,000) with Sonoma ranking 28th out of all 58 California Counties.13 There are disparities: men have an incidence rate of 48.8 cases/100,000 persons compared to females (42.6 cases/100,000 persons), whites (45.3 cases/100,000 persons), Hispanics (30.0 cases/100,000 persons), and Asian/Pacific Islanders (37.1 cases/100,000 persons).14
Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD)
Sonoma County has an age-adjusted death rate due to COPD of 33.1 per 10,000 from 2013-2015.15 As with mortality rates, females have a slightly higher death rate compared to males, at 41.6/10,000 and 37.8/10,000, respectively. COPD is the sixth leading cause of death in Sonoma County.16
Asthma
According to California Health Interview Survey, as of 2016, 15.1 % of Sonoma County residents compared to 14.8 % of California residents have been diagnosed with asthma.17 In Sonoma County, among those who had a previous asthma diagnosis, 51.3% still have asthma, more than the 60.2% reported in California overall. The majority of hospitalizations from asthma occur in those less than 4 and greater than 65 years of age. Women have an asthma hospitalization rate of 3.3/10,000 compared to men with 3.4/10,000.18
The greatest disparities appear when looking across race/ethnicity and geography. Black/African Americans have a significantly higher rate of asthma at 21.4/10,000, which is far above the rates seen for any other category.19
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis rates in Sonoma County have been consistently lower than the rates in all of California, with 2014 rates of 2.6/100,000 vs 5.6/100,000 statewide.20 Further data are not available due to the low number of cases.
Influenza and Pneumonia
The death rate due to influenza and pneumonia in Sonoma County has decreased by about 30% since 2010, from 13.3/100,000 between 2008 and 2010 to 9.8/100,000 persons between 2013 and 2015.21 Looking more closely at pneumonia, only adults age of over 85 have significantly higher death rates due to pneumonia at 218.7/10,000 22. Influenza and pneumonia ranked as the 14th leading cause of death in Sonoma County from 2013-2015, far below the 2017 statewide rank of 11th.23
Bibliography
1. University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute. (2018). California Health Rankings and Roadmaps. Retrieved September 2018 from http://www.countyhealthrankings.org/app/california/2018/rankings/sonoma/county/outcomes/overall/snapshot
2. UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. (2018). California Health Interview Survey (2016). Retrieved September 2018 from http://ask.chis.ucla.edu/
3. California Department of Health Care Services (2018). Affordable care act (2016). Retrieved September 2018 from http://www.dhcs.ca.gov/individuals/Pages/AffordableCareActLinks.aspx
4. University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute. (2018). California Health Rankings and Roadmaps. Retrieved September 2018 from http://www.countyhealthrankings.org/app/california/2018/rankings/sonoma/county/outcomes/overall/snapshot
5. University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute. (2018). California Health Rankings and Roadmaps. Retrieved September 2018 from http://www.countyhealthrankings.org/app/california/2018/rankings/sonoma/county/outcomes/overall/snapshot
6. California Tobacco Control Program. (2018). California Tobacco Facts and Figures 2016. Retrieved September 2018 from http://tobaccofreeca.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/2016-California-Tobacco-Facts-Figures.pdf
7. UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. (2018). California Health Interview Survey (2016). Retrieved September 2018 from http://ask.chis.ucla.edu/
8. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. (2018). Air Quality Index Daily Values Report. Retrieved September 2018 from https://www.epa.gov/outdoor-air-quality-data/about-air-data-reports
9. California Department of Public Health. (2018). County Individual Data Sheets 2018. Retrieved 2018 September from https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CHSI/CDPH%20Document%20Library/CHSP-SONOMA.pdf
10. California Cancer Registry. (2018). Status Update of Cancer Incidence, Mortality, and Health Behaviors by Counties, December 2015. Retrieved 2018 September from http://www.ccrcal.org/pdf/factsheets/Counties_2015/Sonoma_2015.pdf
11. California Department of Public Health. (2018). County Individual Data Sheets 2018. Retrieved 2018 September from https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CHSI/CDPH%20Document%20Library/CHSP-SONOMA.pdf
12. Ibid.
13. National Cancer Institute State Cancer Profiles. (2018). Incidence Rates Table, Lung & Bronchus Cancer, California. Retrieved September 2018 from https://statecancerprofiles.cancer.gov/incidencerates/index.php
14. Ibid.
15. California Department of Public Health. (2018). County Individual Data Sheets 2018. Retrieved 2018 September from https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CHSI/CDPH%20Document%20Library/CHSP-SONOMA.pdf
16. Ibid.
17. UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. (2018). California Health Interview Survey (2016). Retrieved September 2018 from http://ask.chis.ucla.edu
18. California Department of Public Health. (2018). Asthma Hospitalizations and Emergency Department Visits. Retrieved September 2018 from http://www.cehtp.org/page/asthma/results
19. Ibid.
20. California Department of Public Health. (2018). Report on Tuberculosis in California, 2014. Retrieved September 2018 from https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CID/DCDC/CDPH%20Document%20Library/TBCB_Report_2014.pdf
21. California Department of Public Health. (2018). County Health Status Profiles2012, 2017. Retrieved 2018 September from https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CHSI/CDPH%20Document%20Library/OHIRProfiles2012.pdf https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CHSI/CDPH%20Document%20Library/OHIRProfiles2017.pdf
22. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2018). WONDER Database, Compressed Mortality Files 2016. Retrieved September 2018 from http://wonder.cdc.gov/
23. California Department of Public Health. (2018). County Health Status Profiles2017. Retrieved 2018 September from https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CHSI/CDPH%20Document%20Library/OHIRProfiles2017.pdf