‘The Disparities Are Getting Greater’ in Santa Barbara
Cottage Releases Brain Dump Showing State of Community-Wide Health
Some revelations are obvious but still startling nonetheless.
Such is the case with Cottage Health’s second Community Health Needs Assessment, conducted in 2019. Based on a survey of 900 respondents, fully 21.5 percent of adults reported being “food insecure.” This survey, it should be noted, was conducted before the COVID-19 pandemic.
The good news is that this number did not increase appreciably since a similar population-health survey was commissioned by Cottage three years previously. The grimmer news is that 32 percent of Latino respondents reported being food insecure while 15 percent of non-Hispanic whites did. For respondents who reported making less than $35,000 a year — and those who never finished high school — the numbers were 40.9 percent and 40.7 percent, respectively.
