Monica Morales, director of the Santa Cruz County Health Services Agency, speaks on the issue of citizen participation while Jasmine Najera, CEO of Pajaro Valley Prevention & Student Assistance, left, listens at a news conference presenting the latest County Health Rankings data for Santa Cruz County to be discussed. (Nick Sestanovich – Santa Cruz Sentinel)
WATSONVILLE >> Overall, Santa Cruz County performs well in terms of overall health outcomes, ranking ninth out of 58 California counties on the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s 2023 County Health Rankings list, which ranks counties across the country in various areas related to health.
Santa Cruz even saw a slight increase from last year when it finished 11th, but despite this positive result, officials are working hard to address health categories where it doesn’t perform as well. The results of that list were presented by Santa Cruz County Health Services Agency and Pajaro Valley Unified School District at the district’s Family Engagement and Wellness Center on Wednesday, the day the list was released.
Susan Brutchy, president of Applied Survey Research, said 13% of county adults reported being in poor or reasonable health, compared to 12% domestically and 14% stateside. Santa Cruz also outperformed the state and nation on adult obesity rates, access to exercise facilities, teenage birth rates, annual flu shots, and air pollution rates.
On the negative side, 26% of households reported housing problems, be it overcrowded apartments, high costs and a lack of kitchen or plumbing facilities. This matched the percentage reported by the state and was nine percentage points higher than that of the nation.
The district also reported a higher number of poor mental health days and a lower number of mental health providers. This was emphasized in Wednesday’s presentation.
“That’s important because it gives us an opportunity to compare counties across the country in terms of well-being and the look of well-being,” Brutchy said.
Brutschy said the County Health Rankings have placed an emphasis on civic participation in 2023 to measure well-being. Civic participation is measured through voter turnout, advocacy, volunteering, mentoring, and other community activities.
“I think it’s really important because it talks about the role of citizen health and how we all play a role and how it works both ways,” she said. “It makes us feel better, and when we take care of ourselves, our civic participation increases and we have the opportunity to increase the well-being of citizens across the country.”
Santa Cruz County Health Director Monica Morales said she grew up in the county and a lot has changed.
“When I was here, high school ratings were really bad, especially in this part of the county,” she said. “We also had high teenage pregnancy rates. We’ve also struggled with low health insurance premiums, so it’s quite remarkable to be able to look at the data now and see how well we’re doing.”
However, Morales emphasized that there are many areas that need improvement.
“You can see from the rankings that there’s still a big imbalance in power, a big imbalance in access,” she said. “The data still shows, for example, that our Latino children experience the highest rates of poverty, that we still have food insecurity in the country and especially here where we actually produce some of the most delicious fruits and vegetables in the country, and some of our families don’t have once access to them.”
Morales also highlighted a lack of behavioral health services for Indigenous and Spanish-speaking communities.
“I hope that today we continue to highlight for ourselves the resilient community we live in, the powerful collective impact we are a part of, but most importantly, that we continue to challenge institutions to ensure they are responsive to the needs fulfilling our community,” she said.
Morales said the Health Services Agency is working to “shift the conversation, moving from an institution that projects onto our community, to an institution that listens to you, that sits around the table with community-based organizations.”
“We don’t have to solve it,” she said. “We don’t even have to fund it, but we have to sit at the table and listen and actually be part of the solution.”
Pajaro Valley Prevention & Student Assistance (PVPSA) chief officer Jasmine Najera said one problem is not having enough mental health clinicians to provide services to students.
“We face a massive shortage of mental health providers, not just locally but across the state,” she said. “We just don’t have that many people to fill those positions, and more and more clinicians are leaving those positions because they’re burned out themselves.”
Najera said PVPSA is working to provide clinical services such as crisis response, family strengthening and workforce development.
“My mission in this role at PVPSA is to continue to ensure we have a strong workforce to ensure we are putting the right resources in the right places and making sure we reflect the needs of our community,” she said.
PVUSD Superintendent Michelle Rodriguez highlighted what the district has done to address the issues, including opening the Wellness Center on EA Hall Middle School’s campus in December 2021. Since then, it has served more than 14,800 families and has provided a psychiatrist provided on-site and worked with agencies to distribute frozen meals from Martha’s Kitchen and groceries through Second Harvest Food Bank, host a farmers market from FoodWhat and parenting classes from Triple P and Disciplina Positiva.
“I think what I’m most proud of is the fact that we developed this and then we didn’t stop listening,” she said. “We said, ‘Let’s hear what people are actually saying, what their needs are, and change over time.'”
Morales said it will take action to improve data in areas where the county is lacking.
“Let’s just start and really focus on the political elements,” she said. “We know this is required to transform the systems.”
Complete data for Santa Cruz County can be found at Countyhealthrankings.org.
The eight counties that ranked higher than Santa Cruz were Marin, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Placer, Napa, Orange, San Francisco, and Ventura.
