Maternal/Child Health — Child Care Supply & Demand

Why It’s Important?It is common today for families with children to have both the mother and father in the labor force. One by-product of this joint labor force participation has been a strong demand for child care. It is essential that parents have adequate num-bers of child care to choose from. A gap between supply and demand of licensed slots places a signifi cant burden on working parents. When parents go back to work, too many parents are forced to “make do”—to accept care that may fall short of the quality they want for their child. Many fi nd themselves searching again and again for new arrangements as their initial “choices” prove unreliable or unsatisfactory. The disruption to the child, the family and the parent’s work-ing life is immense and costly. Experiences in early childhood shape a child’s development and pave the way for future well-being.

Shown here are three measures by typical age groupings for care: the num-ber of children with working parents who potentially need child care, current licensed child care slots and current child care openings.

How We’re Doing?A Tuolumne County parent currently seeking licensed child care will have few, if any choices available to him or her. While the graph shows that there are a few more slots available to a parent with a preschool age child seeking care, that same parent will most likely have location, schedule and preference needs that won’t match those slots.

Community groups such as ICES, the local Child Care Resource and Refer-ral agency and the Tuolumne County Local Child Care Planning Council are actively working to alleviate this shortage. Outreach to the public, on-going recruitment of child care providers and incentives for new and existing provid-ers along with training are a few of the strategies they are employing.

Sources1. Needing care - U.S Census Bureau,

2000 Total number of children with

parents in the labor force whose par-

ents want to use formal child care ser-

vices. This number refl ects children

with either two parents or single head

of household in the labor force with

an adjustment factor for parents who

would not use formal care.

2. Spaces & openings - ICES Child

Care Resource & Referral, May 2005

Health & Safety

HEALTH & SAFETY

HEALTH & SAFETY

Maternal/Child Health - (Todd)

How We’re Doing?Between 2001 and 2003, 90% of all Tuolumne County pregnancies initiated pre-natal care during the fi rst third of pregnancy, compared to 86.4% of all California pregnancies. Despite the fact that Tuolumne County pregnancies generally are seen for the fi rst time at an early point in the pregnancy, many pregnancies fail to attend all prenatal appointments, such that only 73% of all pregnancies in Tuolumne County achieve “Adequate” or better-than-adequate prenatal care, according to the “Adequacy of Prenatal Care Utilization Index” established by the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, compared with 78% of all California pregnancies . This prenatal care attendance decreased from 81% be-tween 1996 and 1998 compared with 73% between 2001 and 2003.

While 89% of mothers were breastfeeding their newborns at the time of discharge from the hospital in Tuolumne County in 2003, only 59% of mothers followed by Health Department programs were continuing to breast feed three months after delivery.

Tuolumne County non-Hispanic Caucasian teenagers show a teen preg-nancy rate that is approximately equal with that of culturally and racially matched groups throughout California, but is only slightly more than half the teenage pregnancy rate for the average California teenager. Sexually transmit-ted diseases similarly show a lower reported prevalence rate in Tuolumne County than the state average. However, similar to statewide trends, sexually transmitted diseases are increasing in frequency, particularly among the 15 to 25 year old population, and most notably involving infections with chlamydia and gonorrhea.

While Tuolumne County was grouped with six other counties in compiling data regarding substance use during pregnancy, the average rates of “drug and/or alcohol exposed births” for the Tuolumne County region was 1.48%, or approxi-mately 15 out of 1000 births between 1991 and 1998. In compiling this data, it was recognized that the actual incidence of perinatal substance use is considerably greater than what is refl ected in these numbers. Data from the Prenatal Assess-ment Project collected by the Health Department between 2003 and 2004 indicates that 16% of the reported pregnancies, representing over 8% of the total Tuolumne County pregnancies for the year, admitted to alcohol or drug use during preg-

nancy. In addition, 25% of those pregnant patients, representing 12.5% of total

Tuolumne County pregnancies, were currently smoking.

1 County Health Status Profi les 2004, California Department of Health Services

2 Tuolumne County Women, Infants and Children’s (WIC) Program data, 2003

3 The number of pregnancies per 1000 teenagers 15 to 19 years old

4 California Counts, Public Policy Institute of Califor-nia, February 2003

5 California Department of Health Services STD Surveillance Report, July 2004

6 Prenatal Assessment Project data, Tuolumne County Health Department, 2001-2004

Motor Vehicle Safety (Mike, Mace, Dick)

Why is this important?Greatly increased traffic flow and changes within the infrastructure of Tu-olumne County and the City of Sonora are believed to be partially respon-sible for the upturn in collision statistics. California Department of Finance statistics report that California has received in excess of 500,000 new resi-dents each year for the past six years. Tuolumne County’s population grew by 3.3 percent last year.

How We’re Doing?Even with the influx of traffic within Tuolumne County, the total reportable collision rate for the County (all jurisdictions) fell by nearly ten percent in 2004 as compared with 2003.

Over the course of a five-year period from January 1, 2000, through Decem-ber 31, 2004, reportable traffic collisions (those involving injuries and fatali-ties), rose an average of 3.4 percent. Of the total reportable collisions experi-enced within the unincorporated areas of Tuolumne County, a near 21 percent increase (average) was seen in fatal collisions, with an approximate 3 percent rise in the number of injury collisions.

Though current (2004 calendar year) statewide statistics were not available at this time, those for calendar year 2002 showed Tuolumne County to experi-ence a fatality rate of over twice the state average, while the injury collision rate was approximately 21 percent lower than the state average.

Violence and Crime (Dick, Mike, Mace)

Why is this important?In order to ensure a sustainable community, people need to live without fear of crime. Social disintegration is directly indicated by high crime levels that harm the well-being, stability and economy of a community by inhibit-ing investment and responsible growth. Increased crime levels, particularly involving juveniles, are particularly disturbing because the future of a com-munity lies in the ability of its youth to develop into emotionally stable and productive adults.

Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) is a federal reporting system that pro-vides data on crime based on police statistics submitted by law enforcement agencies throughout the nation. The standard seven UCR categories of crime reported each year include homicide, forcible rape, robbery, burglary, larceny (theft except motor vehicles), and motor vehicle theft. These statistics give the most accurate picture of the overall crime level.

2002 Statewide

Statistics

Fatality

Rate

Injury

Rate

1 out every… 1 out every…

Tuolumne County*

3,546 people 141 people

California 8,632 people 114 people

SourceTuolumne County and City of Sonora Collision Percentages

COUNTY FATAL COLLISIONS BY YEAR

Year 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004

number of

collisions7 14 17 25 15

% CHANGE 100.0% 21.4% 47.1% -40.0%

COUNTY INJURY COLLISIONS BY YEAR

Year 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004

number of

collisions407 432 427 444 408

% CHANGE

6.1% -1.2% 4.0% -8.1%

TOTAL COUNTY REPORTABLE COLLISIONS

Number 414 446 444 469 423

% CHANGE

7.7% -0.4% 5.6% -9.8%

SourcesLatest available statewide rates from Statewide Integrated

Traffic Records System “Annual Report of Fatal and Injury

Traffic Motor Vehicle Traffic Collisions”, 2002 California Quick

Collision Facts.