LifestyleHealthy Living

Actions

SLO County Public Health releases community health improvement plan

Posted at 12:46 PM, Jan 10, 2019
and last updated 2019-01-10 15:46:46-05

The San Luis Obispo County Public Health Department has released the county’s first-ever community health improvement plan.

Public health officials reportedly worked with more than 95 partners in the non-profit, health care, and governmental sectors to come up with the five-year plan. The goal — “ensuring all San Luis Obispo County residents have the opportunity to be healthy.”

The plan identifies eight priority areas and major goals for each:

  1. Access to care
    • Improve coordination of health care among service providers
    • Increase the proportion of low-income children in SLO County with routine and adequate dental care
    • Recruit and retain providers to the Central Coast
  2. Social determinants of health
    • Increase CalFresh enrollment to reduce hunger and improve health among SLO County residents
    • Improve access to affordable, attainable, safe and supportive housing
  3. Maternal, child and adolescent health
    • Improve social and emotional support for new mothers
    • Implement a Help Me Grow system in SLO County
  4. Infectious disease
    • Reduce the rate of undiagnosed hepatitis C in SLO County Jail inmate population
    • Reduce the rate of influenza in high-risk SLO County populations
    • Reduce the rate of syphilis in SLO County population
  5. Chronic disease and health behaviors
    • Improve diets and increase physical activity in the environments where people eat, live, learn, work, and play
    • Reduce rates of chronic disease among county residents
    • Reduce smoking initiation, tobacco use, and exposure to secondhand smoke
  6. Injuries
    • Reduce falls among seniors
    • Reduce vehicle-related injuries
  7. Social and emotional wellness
    • Improve consistency of care across the continuum of social and emotional wellness services
    • Improve the social and emotional support network for teens in SLO County
  8. Environment
    • Increase awareness of Valley Fever within the agriculture community
    • Improve water quality at high priority beach/creek interfaces

To read the full plan, click here.

The Public Health Department says it will release a report on the progress toward its goals each year.