The overall health status of Santa Barbara County residents is exceptionally high, compared to other communities, and in many cases, the state and the nation.

Some of the key bright spots based on the results of the survey include:

• Only 17% of adults report they smoke cigarettes which is lower than the nation and the state of California, and places our county among the few nationally that came very close to meeting the Healthy People 2000 objective of 15% for the nation.

• 92% of adults have had their blood pressure checked in the past 2 years which is slightly higher than for California and exceeds the Healthy People 2000 objective of 90%.

• 88% of women over age 40 have had a mammogram. The Healthy People 2000 national objective for mammograms in this age group is 85%.

• 89% of adults report they always use a seat belt when driving or riding in a vehicle. This is higher than the rate for California (87%) and the nation (69%) and comes very close to meeting the Healthy People 2000 objective of 90%.

• 97% of children always use a seat belt or car seat when riding in a vehicle. For the state of California, this rate was 92% in 1997.

•About 75% of those who currently smoke report they would like to quit.

• 74% of adults age 65 and older have had a flu shot in the past year and 60% have had a pneumonia vaccination. These rates are higher than for California where 66% of adults age 65 and older had a flu shot in the past year and 50% had a pneumonia vaccination.

A Understanding this Report
The data presented for Santa Barbara County were collected in 1999 as part of the Santa Barbara County Community Health Assessment Survey. In many of the charts and other displays, comparison data is shown for the state of California and the nation. This data comes from state and national surveys funded by the Centers for Disease Control. These Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) surveys are carried out in all states. The BRFSS data used for comparison in this report comes from 1997 and 1998. To help us interpret the data, comparisons are also made to Healthy People 2000. Healthy People 2000 is the national prevention initiative that identifies opportunities to improve the health of all Americans by putting forth health targets for the nation. A list of survey questions for both adults and children can be found in Appendix B.

There are, however, substantial opportunities for health status and risk factor improvements that cut across all population subgroups within the county. Additionally, there are health issues that disproportionately affect a particular subgroup of the total county population. Areas of concern include:

• Hispanic respondents in Santa Barbara County are generally substantially disadvantaged in their overall health status compared to non-Hispanic respondents.

• Across all Santa Barbara County residents, 21% of adults and 19% of children have no health care coverage. This is higher than the rate of uninsured in California (18%) and substantially higher than for the nation (13%).

• 42% of adults and 30% of children have no dental care coverage.

• 36% of young adults (age 18 to 30) report they engaged in binge drinking at least once in the past month.

• 11% of young adults (age 18 to 30) report they had driven drunk or ridden with a drunk driver in the past month.

• 30% of adults and 28% of children are overweight. This rate is very close to the rate for overweight adults for California (31%) and the nation (32%) and is much above the Healthy People 2000 objective of 20%.

• Almost 25% of adults rate their level of physical fitness as fair or poor.

• 46% of adults say they do not get enough exercise.

• 84% of adults and 90% of children do not get the recommended 5 servings of fruits and vegetables each day. These rates are above those reported for adults in California (73%) and the nation (76%).

• 55% of those surveyed say they experienced a lot or a moderate amount of stress in the past year.

• 25% have one or more firearms in their home or vehicle, and of these, 10% report that it was both loaded and unlocked.

• 34% reported they are concerned about pollution or environmental contamination affecting the health of county residents.