Healthcare

= Population Health = The Population Health of San Diego County has been reported to score a 78 out of 100 on the scale of this category. It is defined on the understanding of what exactly the Population Health category measures the healthy behaviors, health conditions, mental health and resulting health outcomes within the different communities/population residing in San Diego County. For more detail on understanding what population health is and what it measures the National Library of Medicine does a deeper dive into this stating that it is the health outcomes of a group of individuals, including the distribution of outcomes within the group that includes health outcomes, patterns if health determinants, and policies and interventions that may link the two aforementioned.

The population health report of San Diego County reported some key points that showed the county’s approach to overcome the national average of some issues such as an 11% smoking rate versus a national average of 20%, life expectancy of 82.2 years versus the National Median of 77.5 years, and even population without Health Insurance at a rate of 8.9% versus the National Rate of 11%. Despite these more standout points that is seen for San Diego County’s overall score, looking into the core details of what gave the score we see that some categories are lower compared to others which leads to the lowering of a potential higher score that this County can receive.

Looking into some of the lower scored categories can help improve well being of San Diegans and improve policy making in regards to healthcare issues.

Ranking of Categories
This is broken down into 5 separate and general categories (as well as other background details), each category has different subjects/metrics that compose the general category it is listed under. The metrics scored together produce the final score of the category it is under. While we wish to always improve on all accounts of health, we should look into the first 2 categories as they have the lowest ranked scores.


 * Access To Care [Score: 55/100]:  Defined as the ability to have access and obtain healthcare services such as diagnosis, treatment, prevention, and management of diseases, illness, disorders, and other health issues. The key point that truly defines accessibility of healthcare, is to be affordable and convenient. It is known that many people don’t have access to decent healthcare.




 * Health Behaviors [Score: 64/100]: Defined as actions people take that affect their health directly or indirectly. This includes actions that lead to improved health, such as healthy eating and physically active habits. This also includes actions that increase a person’s risk of disease, such as smoking, excessive drinking, and risky sexual behavior.


 * Health Conditions [Score: 77/100]: