City of Berkeley Health Status Report 2007

This report presents a comprehensive assessment of Berkeley's health status and community health needs. The numbers tell an important story that is simultaneously encouraging and distressing. Overall, Berkeley residents are living longer, healthier lives. Life expectancy has increased over the last 10 years from 77 to 83 years. Berkeley has the lowest teen birth rate in the state, due in part to the Public Health Division's 16-year partnership with the Berkeley Unified School District. In our 1999 Health Status Report, there were alarming disparities between racial and ethnic groups in Berkeley in access in prenatal care; these disparities have now been eliminated.

Despite these gains in health outcomes and program effectiveness, we continue to see persistent disparities in many health outcomes based on income, race/ethnicity, neighborhood, education, and other social determinants of health. Berkeley is a relatively small community in a large, very mobile, urban area. We have seen a great deal of middle-class flight in the last several years, changing the health dynamic considerably. There is still a lot of work that needs to be done, particularly in regard to understanding and eliminating these social inequities that contribute to poor health among some Berkeley residents.

View the Berkeley Health Status Report — www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/publichealth/reports/reports.html

Flyer for the City of Berkeley Community Forum — Held September 25, 2007