What Impacts Our Health?

Our health is influenced by many things. Interestingly, our lifestyle and habits have the largest impact on our health status. This is where public health prevention and education programs can help us achieve the greatest benefits to our health. Genetics, or traits we inherit along family lines, influence our health by about 20%. The medical delivery system can have about a 10% impact on our health. Our lifestyle and habits can have up to a 50% influence on our health. The environment can influence our health about 20%.

Look at Our County

These charts describe Santa Barbara County-where we live, how much education we have, our age, our ethnicity, and how many of us are in poverty.

Why is this important?

Age, education, ethnicity, and poverty all influence the health of our community. Poverty plays an important role in health. The more poverty, the poorer the health status of the community. More than a quarter of county residents live below 200% of the poverty level. Forty percent of our public school children qualify for free or reduced school lunches. The most direct link to poverty is educational level. Twenty percent of our county residents over 25 years of age have less than a high school education.