What key factors have led to disparate health outcomes in California?

Updating The Landscape Of Opportunity: Cultivating Health Equity In California

View the interactive map

In 2009, Healthy City supported the California Pan Ethnic Health Network (CPEHN) in their groundbreaking brief, “The Landscape of Opportunity: Cultivating Health Equity in California.” This brief offered a starting point for advocates to look at health more comprehensively and to address disparate health outcomes. Three years later, in conjunction with CPEHN’s 20th anniversary, Healthy City partnered with CPEHN to update that groundbreaking report. The 2012 update included more key factors tied to health inequities. In addition, updates were made to an online platform for CPEHN to share the results of the report in an interactive way.

Health inequities exist throughout the state.

Nearly 50% of African Americans and Latinos are living in ‘asset poverty,’ meaning they are one paycheck, one car accident, or one medical emergency away from financial ruin. Counties such as Fresno, Madera, and Tulare had low percentages of youth with access to a park in walking distance, and high percentages of non-white populations. Counties such as San Bernardino, Riverside, and Tulare had a higher number of unhealthy food outlets than healthy food outlets, and high percentages of non-white populations.

The data is available through a report and online.

We explored different ways to present the data and ended up creating composite indicators so areas of High Communities of Color can be seen with data related to health. With CPEHN's partnership and data partners like the California Health Interview Survey (CHIS), this data has been made accessible through an in-depth report as well as an online tool.