Focus Areas

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Why these focus areas?

The Health Agency’s Center for Health Equity will initially invest in five key focus areas with support from County and community partners. Our goal is to reduce the identified heath inequities we see based on where a person lives, their race or ethnicity, or other social status that unfairly influences health outcomes. To accomplish this goal, we will need to improve service quality, provision and coordination, while also addressing the conditions and policies that drive and maintain health inequities.

The gaps in health outcomes seen within the Center's focus areas are not caused by personal health behaviors or characteristics. They are mostly the result of past and present policies and practices influenced by racism, sexism, transphobia, homophobia, and other prejudices. These policies and practices lead to inequitable conditions that limit our ability to grow healthy and thrive.

The infant mortality rate of black babies is more than three times higher than the rate of white babies.

Young African American/Black men ages 20-24 are four times as likely to have chlamydia and gonorrhea than their White counterparts.

Children ages 0-17 living below the poverty line are two times as likely to have physical activity limitations from asthma than their wealthier counterparts.

Bel Air residents live, on average, nearly 10 years longer than Southeast Los Angeles residents.

Over 200 languages are spoken in LA County.