Richard Kipling's blog

A triangle of health misery

By Richard Kipling | May 9, 2012

Recently, I blogged about beautiful Humboldt County’s depressing health statistics, the worst in the state.

Since then, I’ve done a little more digging into the state health department’s newest health status profiles to see how California’s other 57 counties are faring. It doesn’t take long to discover that three other California counties are also consistently in the bottom tier, with health statistics almost as alarming as Humboldt’s.

Two other far northern California counties make up, with Humboldt, what appears to be a triangle of health misery.

Humboldt County – Amid stunning beauty, a sad health profile

By Richard Kipling | April 26, 2012

 

I don’t want to beat up on Humboldt County. I’ve driven through it a few times and it’s quintessential far northern California -- beautiful, alluring, with Redwoods everywhere (the county motto is The Home of the Redwoods), a scenic coastline, pretty towns, friendly folk. The kind of place that sets an urban mind to wondering:  Could I live in this lush green paradise?

I’d like to spend more time there, for sure. But after a close look at the latest California Department of Public Health statistics, I might want to remain a visitor and not a resident. The county’s astounding beauty and apparent serenity disguise some truly disturbing health numbers.

Measles -- Is an old disease making a comeback?

By Richard Kipling | March 21, 2012

 Measles.

It was during a break at a UCLA Graduate school of public health seminar that the word came up.

Measles…

It sounds almost archaic, from another era, a term describing a once hugely contagious respiratory disease that now has all but disappeared, at least in the United States.

Or has it? I’d just described to students what the Center is all about and referred to a project we’d produced for the Santa Cruz Sentinel and San Jose Mercury News on vaccination refusal. A student approached me and said measles was a likely future vaccination problem. She predicted an almost certain major outbreak here within the next five years.

How San Diego County serves its poor kids' dental needs

By Richard Kipling | February 23, 2012

Sometimes good things get cut out of good stories. This happened on my editing watch recently, when a story by Jocelyn Wiener on poor kids’ dental health access in Sacramento grew too big and had to be pared back.

This is where blogs come in handy. I can reach in, restore and expand on a relevant piece of information that otherwise would be lost to the cutting room floor or, more accurately, the delete key.

Whooping cough vaccination success – Why did it work?

By Richard Kipling | February 10, 2012

It’s a triumph, no doubt about it.

There was not a single California death from whooping cough in 2011, one year after a record 10 infants died from the disease. This is truly good news, the first time since 1991 that no one in the Golden State has succumbed to the highly infectious illness.

So how did California go from such an awful record to such a good one? Let’s turn to the experts for an explanation.

Is Healthy Kids insurance program still healthy?

By Richard Kipling | January 25, 2012

It’s been two years since I directed a Center for Health Reporting project in partnership with the Santa Cruz Sentinel. We examined the future of a county-wide health insurance program for poor children aged 0-18, most of whom are undocumented. Part of a loose statewide network called Healthy Kids, it participated in First 5 funding but otherwise took no money from any state agency. It was supported by the county, foundation grants, community dollars and community sweat.

A Nursing Shortage?

By Richard Kipling | January 11, 2012

What is it with nurses? Are there too few of them, with shortages looming? Or are there plenty to go around? Which is it?

A decade ago, the specter of the baby boom generation approaching old age led to predictions of a looming nursing shortage.

The AMA’s journal weighed in at the end of 2008 with a dire prediction from Dr. Peter Buerhaus, a top workforce analyst. “…A large and prolonged shortage of nurses is expected to hit the US in the latter half of the next decade,” he said.

Now, a few years later, a number of recent studies leave us wondering, well, what’s up with nurses?

Distribution: The dirty word in state health care workforce planning.

By Richard Kipling | December 20, 2011

As reform looms, California faces a dearth of health professionals

By Richard Kipling | December 6, 2011

I recently came across a report that takes a magnifying glass to what we already sensed -- implementing health reform will place enormous pressure on a system already in distress.

The 212-page document by the UCSF Center for Health Professions, released last month, poses hard questions about the state’s current capacity to deliver care in an era of diminished budgets and spiraling need.

UPDATE: Adult Day Health Care program is saved – sort of

By Richard Kipling | November 18, 2011

Advocates for the ADHC program announced with great enthusiasm Thursday that their long fight to protect this vulnerable elderly and disabled population had succeeded. They had secured a settlement with the state that canceled the need for a scheduled court hearing.

That sounds like a win-win.

But the devil is always in the details. Despite the excitement, daunting problems remain for some members of this population. In fact, it was quietly said, up to half of them.

That’s right. Half of the 35,000 low-income elderly and disabled Californians who attend these places could find themselves in a less friendly environment.

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