Merced County Health Status Essay

A familiaritys health squirt be established through a myriad of differing factors. Three specific factors that result help to determine the health of the county in which I live atomic number 18 community golosh, happening cooking, as wellspring as an analysis of the people. The community under review, Merced, is determined in underlying California and made up of seventeen cities and communities whose individual populations do non exceed more than 75,000 and covers an land of approximately 1,972 square miles (United States Census Bureau, 2010) with a center population of approximately 255,793 people in 2010 (Merced County California, 2012).The first knowledge base of importance is community safety. It is important to beginning discussion with the one of the just about basic of health indicators the air we breathe. The air spirit index in Merced County is 48, a median value that takes into account only the most barbaric air pollutants (Air Now, 2012). This value is o nly slightly lower than the air quality index of California, provided is approximatly 30% higher than the national averold age (Air Now, 2012). some other important area that must be addressed is the wet we drink.In Merced County most of our drinking water comes from groundwater sources which are collected by twain public water systems. Most all areas in Merced County are touch on by three different pollutants Nit range, Ethylene Dibromide (EDB), and Dibromochloropropane (DBCP) (Air Now, 2012). Although all three of the pollutants pedigree below the water standard or eliminated through the public water systems, these pollutants volition continue to be an issue because EDB and DBCP were used by farmers for numerous years to fumigate crops.Another area of charge in community safety is the safety hazards deep down the sociocultural environment. The capability to work, shop, or only ride your bike and see protected inwardly the area in which you live are important feature s in determining the health of a community. With 1. 2 police officers and 4. 4 sheriff officers per 100,000 people and an average response sequence of 3 minutes (Merced County Office of Economic Development, 2012) most people can be fairly confident that they and their position are protected. However, crime rates have risen in the past few years.In 2009, Merced County experienced 1,658 violent crimes the majority of which involved aggrivated assult but also included 26 murders, 78 forcible rapes, and 276 robberies (United States Department of Justice, 2012). There were also 4,390 property crimes and 90 cases of arson (United States Department of Justice, 2012). Rate of offenses per 100,000 are as follows violent 568. 3, property 567. 3, drug 512. 9, sex 37. 9, other 489. 1, and totaling 2,175. 5 per 100,000 (United States Department of Justice, 2012).Considering thither are only 5. law enforcement officers per 100,000 people, it would appear as though crime impart continue to ris e for the foreseeable future. These numbers are especially hard considering budget cuts that will surely affect all public safety departments (Layoff Watch, 2011). There are a couple of ethnic convocations within Merced County that feel especially vulnerable, the Hispanic community and the Asian community. The Hispanic community some shoots-up 50 percent of the population and is congrigated in the poorest of neighborhoods. Yet another concern involving public safety is the ability to obtain medical services.Within Merced County there are only dickens hospitals that offer touch medical service, chronicle hospital of Los Banos and high-handedness health of Merced. Memorial hospital of Los Banos is a relatively small hospital with the ability to admit a total of 46 patients (Memorial Hospital Los Banos, 2008). The arrest room has the ability to care for a total of 6 patients requiring immediate mite care, but has the energy to fly patients out to other facilities if requi red. Dignity health of Merced is the larger of the two facilities and cares for the majority of the population of Merced County.Dignity Health has a total of 194 beds available. Dignity Health has approximately 10,900 admissions per year and total emergency room visits equaling around 66,000 per year. On a typical weekend the emergency room will see about 250 patients between the hours of 7 a. m. and7 p. m. (M. Parker RN, personal communication, June 8, 2012). Also share the community are 8 prime clinics. The majority of these clinics are located within the city limits of Merced and Los Banos. Those located outside of these locations will have to causal agent upto 30 minutes to obtain medical services.Merced County also has five psychiatric facilities, only 2 of which are capable of admitting patients. Country Villa Merced Behavioral Health Center has 96 beds available for the community and has the ability to care for semipermanent patients between the ages of 18 to 65 years of age (Country Villa Merced Behavioral Health Center, 2012). Marie Green Psychiatric Center is a smaller facility that has the ability to admit upto 20 patients between the ages of 18 to 65 years of age, but this is a short term facility that can only care for patients for up to 90 days.Currently, in the Merced County area there are no psychiatric facilities that have the capability to care for psychiatric patients under the age of 18 or over the age of 65. Emergency training within Merced County is primarily controlled by the Department of popular Health. Merced Countys emergency preparedness was last updated in 2003 and in general addresses preparedness, response, recovery, and moderation activities (City of Merced California, 2012). In the preparedness phase, activities are concentrated in advance of a disaster.Actions are cogitate on implementing hazard mitigation projects, developing hazard analyses, developing and maintaining emergency plans and procedures, conducting genera l and specialized training, conducting exercises, developing mutual aid agreements, and improving emergency public education and warning systems (Merced County California, 2003). In the response phase an emergency situation is imminent or likely to occur. During this stage the county initiates actions to increase its readiness.In the recovery phase the focus is to fruit public services to Merced county residents and return any area affected by the emergency to its previous condition. The mitigation phase occurs before and after emergencies. After a disaster or emergency, mitigation or alleviation, includes reducing the impact of hazards that exist within Merced County (Merced County California, 2003). Although Merced County Public Health Department concerns itself with the county as a whole, it must also make provisions for areas more susceptable to emergencies or areas where there is an increased difficulty to penetrate information.Within these areas there are disproportionate et hnic minorities. The two primary ethnic groups, hispanic and asian americans, are particularily at risk because of transportational and caparison issues as well as dysfunctional attitudes toward disaster planning or preparedness. Within Merced County the Hispanic community makes up nearly 50% of the population and constitutes the majority of those living below poverty level. This translates into the majority of the population within the economically depressed areas having inadequate housing or malfunctioning transportation.When a disaster does occur, this group will be the hardest hit as they will not have the financial means to recover what they have lost. This group also has the highest potential for harm due to the inability to relocate to an area that is safe due to transportational issue. What places this group at highest risk are their attitudes toward disaster planning or preparedness. After speaking with six different families from a depressed area, all but one family put a ny theme into a potential emergency, and none of these families had money set aside for such a disaster (personal communication, June 1, 2012).