Health disparities

How is King County doing?

Overall, King County shows declining rates of most diseases and, in many measures, compares well with other major metropolitan counties. However, inequities by race/ethnicity and poverty level remain substantial, especially in infant mortality, and mortality from diabetes and HIV/AIDS.

Compared to whites, infant mortality is almost four times as high in American Indian/Alaska Natives and more than twice as high in African Americans. Mortality from diabetes is three times higher in African Americans compared to whites. Diabetes mortality is also greater in American Indian/Alaska Natives, Hispanic/Latinos, and high-poverty neighborhoods. The largest HIV mortality inequity is by sexual behavior. The HIV mortality rate for men who have sex with men is at least 78 times higher than for heterosexual men. For African Americans and American Indian/Alaska Natives, the risk of death is three to five times more likely than in whites.

What else influences these indicators?

The social and physical environments are major determinants of health and health inequities. Social factors such as early child care, education; freedom from discrimination; safe housing; living wage incomes; and timely, high-quality health care strongly influence most health outcomes and health inequities. Influential factors in the physical environment include safe communities, healthy indoor and outdoor air, community walkability and availability of healthy foods.

What role does King County government play?

King County reduces health inequities through supporting healthy physical environments such as parks and bicycle/pedestrian paths, reducing air pollution; supporting a health care safety net to provide clinical services to the uninsured, underinsured and low-income residents; and developing programs to decrease inequities in diabetes, asthma, physical activity and nutrition in some of King County's high-poverty communities.

The King County Equity and Social Justice Initiative takes aim at long-standing and persistent local inequities and injustices. Examples of actions of the Initiative include:

• development of the Equity Impact Review tool, used to assess whether King County policies and programs spread benefits fairly and help address historic patterns of institutionalized discrimination
• documentation of inequities in order to measure progress in correcting them
• educating employees about the root causes of inequities to spark a dialogue about how to identify and address inequities within their programs, divisions and departments
• community engagement and partnerships to increase awareness of and spur action to address inequities, especially around policies

What can you do?

The Equity and Social Justice Initiative offers resources for community members who want to host a dialogue group or view the series "Unnatural Causes". If you want to get involved with ESJI, contact information is located at http://www.kingcounty.gov/exec/equity/getinvolved.aspx.