A recent study found that income and ethnicity are determining factors in the health of Los Angeles women.
The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health released Health Indicators for Women on March 3.
It reported an increased risk of premature death for African American women, a disproportionate lack of insurance in the Latina community and an insufficient amount of preventative treatment for Asian American women.
“I think, in general, the report is pretty accurate as to what we see here,” John Merryman, spokesman for the South Bay Family Health Care, which has clinics in Redondo Beach, Inglewood, Gardena and Carson, told the Daily Breeze.
Findings included:
*Eight hundred and two African American women out of 100,000 died prematurely, compared to the county average of 556 per 100,000.
*More than a third of the Latina community is uninsured. Six percent of white women are uninsured.
*Asian/Pacific Islanders are the least likely group to have a Pap test in the last three years or a mammogram in the last two years.
*Only 54 percent of uninsured women had a mammogram in the last two years. Seventy-nine percent of women with private insurance had one.
*South Los Angeles had the highest obesity rate among women at 41 percent.
Health Indicators for Women failed to include the percentage of women who are illegal immigrants and the effects of their citizenship on their health.
The Department of Public Health hopes this report will be influential in closing these gaps in health care.
“Our physical and social environment impacts everyone’s health and there are terrible discrepancies,” Dr. Jonathan Fielding, the director of the county health department, told the Daily Breeze.
Merryman said access to health care is the biggest issue presented in the study, calling it the thing to “even the playing field.”
But Dr. Rita Singhal, an author of the report, told the Los Angeles Times that this issue transcends access, especially in the African American female community. She suspects that racial discrimination and stress also play a role.
“What types of resources are required to meet the needs of these women? That’s something we need policy makers to look at,” Singhal said.
