Report: SM residents disproportionately affected by pandemic

By ANNIKA BAHNSEN NEWS-PRESS CORRESPONDENT

The Santa Barbara County Public Health Department, in partnership with Cottage Health, has completed the subpopulation analysis of the City of Santa Maria as part of the 2022 Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA).

The 121-page report was conducted in October 2022. The Santa Maria Needs Assessment (SMNA) was one of two subpopulation needs assessments conducted in the CHNA.

The report asserts that Santa Maria residents have been disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in comparison to the rest of Santa Barbara County. Although only 25% of Santa Barbara County’s population lives in Santa Maria, 37.3% of the county’s COVID-related deaths and 29.9% of county cases have been among Santa Maria residents.

With the goal of learning more about the cause of the health disparities that have contributed to these deaths and cases, the survey included questions on the following topics: economic and housing stability, childcare, healthcare access, neighborhood environment, food access and security, and the overall impact of COVID-19.

Over three days, close to 200 households were randomly selected and agreed to participate. Data was adjusted to proportionally represent all households in Santa Maria.

The report concluded that there was a higher chance that a household would fall under the federal poverty level, have a household member employed seasonally, and/or suffer from food insecurity if English was not the primary language of the household. From the data that they collected, 55% of Santa Maria households spoke primarily Spanish in the home and that 60% of households rented their home; values far higher than data presented in the CHNA across the county. There were multiple impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic that were identified from Santa Maria households in the report. Over a third of households shared that the pandemic was currently causing job and/or wage loss, reduction of work hours and financial problems. The survey also revealed that 15% of Santa Maria households had someone suffering from long-term COVID-19 symptoms in the last year. This was new health information gathered for the Public Health Department, as there is not much research done on long-term COVID19 affects. email: abahnsen@newspress.com

The report also provided recommendations for positive actions in the community. These include increased community education on safety net programs, investing in expanding cross-cutting efforts to address social determinants of health, and achieving health equity.

In collaboration with Cottage Health, the Public Health Department will be conducting community presentations to share the CHNA and SMNA this summer. Those wishing to read the assessments can visit www.countyofsb.org/410/PublicHealth.