Large Drop In Heart Attack Hospitalizations In San Diego Has Experts Eyeing Local Initiative’s Strategies
There isn't a conclusive link between Be There San Diego and the drop in hospitalizations, but there's enough of a correlation that experts are paying attention. The initiative focused on collaboration between doctors and aggressively identifying patients who needed intervention.
The San Diego Union-Tribune:
Why Is San Diego's Heart Attack Rate 20 Percent Lower Than The Rest Of The State?
Be There San Diego, an organization leading a wide-ranging effort to reduce heart disease by getting doctors from different organizations to work together, is getting national attention for reducing the region’s heart attack risk. A newly published study released Tuesday highlights a 22 percent drop over five years in the number of local heart attack hospitalizations, a result that is a full 14 percentage points better than the 8 percent decrease observed across the state. (Sisson, 9/4)
In other public health news —
CALmatters:
Is Help On The Way For Californians With Tainted Water?
In the Central Valley, in particular, excess amounts of arsenic, nitrates and other substances that can cause cancers and birth defects have tainted drinking water. In Compton, residents have been living with foul-smelling brown water because the cost of fixing the pipes is high, and many can’t afford to buy a constant supply of bottled water. (Gorn, 9/4)
San Francisco Chronicle:
How California Learned To Keep Pregnant Women, New Moms From Dying
As deaths of new and expectant moms multiplied in the United States, the picture in California and the rest of the developed world has veered in the opposite direction. ...A study out Tuesday in the journal Health Affairs, by the Stanford University medical team that started the initiative, seeks to explain why. (Veklerov, 9/4)