Why is life expectancy 7 years shorter in Stanislaus County than the rest of California?
The life expectancy for residents of Stanislaus County is 74 years, seven years lower than the state’s overall rate, county public health officials said this week.
The latest longevity estimate comes from the county’s newly released Public Health Annual Report.
County public health officials said Wednesday that COVID-19 had an impact on the 74-year estimate. Without the deadly pandemic, life expectancy in the county would be 77 years.
The average life expectancy serves as an overall indicator of health in Stanislaus County’s population, said Kamlesh Kaur, a public information officer for the county Health Services Agency.
Kaur said the prevalence of chronic diseases and social determinants of health, such as income, education level, access to health care and neighborhood conditions, can influence life expectancy in different areas of the state.
“For example, people who don’t have access to grocery stores with healthy foods are less likely to have good nutrition,” Kaur said in an email. “That raises their risk of health conditions like heart disease, diabetes and obesity — and even lowers life expectancy relative to people who do have access to healthy foods.”
Overall, life expectancy in California is 81 years.
Stanislaus County traditionally has scored poorly on the indicators of overall community health.
Smoking is a habit for 14% of adults in the county, compared to 10% statewide. The county has a much higher rate of adult obesity (31% compared to 26% statewide), and heart disease is more prevalent here, affecting 10.5% of adults compared to 6.9% in the state, the county health report said.
The county also has about 40% more residents who are physically inactive when compared with people in other regions of California. Food insecurity is a reality for 12% of local residents and 10% of California’s population.
Another statistic that stands out is cancer mortality. According to the new report, the county has a cancer death rate of 157.1 per 100,000 residents, which is far higher than the statewide rate of 131.5 per 100,000 residents.
Health officials offered no explanation for the elevated rate.
Cancer was the leading cause of death, followed by COVID-19, in the annual report covering the time period from July 2021 to June 2022. The top five causes of death also included heart disease, accidents and cerebrovascular diseases such as strokes and aneurysms.
The local suicide rate is 11.6 per 100,000, while the statewide rate is 10.7 per 100,000.
The annual county report said that deaths from opioid drug overdoses, among adults 35 to 44 years old, increased by 6.8% from 2020 to 2021. The county’s mortality rate from opioid overdoses last year was lower than the state’s — 15.7 per 100,000 compared to 17.4 per 100,000.
Is there a major cause?
When the public health report was presented to county supervisors Tuesday evening, Supervisor Vito Chiesa noted the dramatic difference in life expectancy. He asked if it was related to all the health measures or one major cause.
“I know our obesity and smoking rates and all the other things contribute, but it’s hard to get my hands around this,” Chiesa said. “We need to do better.”
Dr. Thea Papasozomenos, county public health officer, said the county certainly has a higher cancer death rate, but there are other disease factors that contribute to shorter life expectancy.
When asked for more clarification Wednesday, the county public health division stated that chronic disease issues and social and environmental factors were the problems to tackle in trying to improve life expectancy.
“With this data and community health improvements, we hope everyone can outlive the current expectations,” Kaur said by email.
County health officials devoted more attention to chronic disease prevention and community health improvements before all hands were committed to battling COVID-19 in March 2020. More than 1,800 deaths were attributed to COVID-19 in Stanislaus County.
County leaders said the public health division could return to addressing other contagious diseases and community health issues when the county’s COVID-19 response was relaxed in September.
Update on ‘tripledemic’
Papasozomenos, or “Dr. Papa” for short, told the county Board of Supervisors on Tuesday that hospitalizations for seasonal flu and COVID omicron infections were elevated this month, but it is significantly less than what was seen with previous coronavirus surges.
She said emergency room visits and hospital admissions for RSV, mainly affecting young children, seemed to have peaked and are trending downward.
Health officials are keeping an eye on influenza cases, which usually peak in January and February.
“We had an early start to flu season and don’t know if it will peak earlier and come down or we will have an especially severe flu season,” Papasozomenos said.
The Stanislaus County Health Services Agency will have a link to the Public Health Annual Report on its website at www.schsa.org.
