A community’s wellness can be established through a myriad of differing factors. Three specific factors that will assist to find the wellness of the county in which I live are community safety. catastrophe readiness. every bit good as an analysis of the population. The community under reappraisal. Merced. is located in cardinal California and made up of 17 metropoliss and communities whose single populations do non transcend more than 75. 000 and screens an country of about 1. 972 square stat mis ( United States Census Bureau. 2010 ) with a entire population of about 255. 793 people in 2010 ( Merced County California. 2012 ) .
The first country of importance is community safety. It is of import to get downing treatment with the one of the most basic of wellness indexs ; the air we breathe. The air quality index in Merced County is 48. a average value that takes into history merely the most risky air pollutants ( Air Now. 2012 ) . This value is merely somewhat lower than the air quality index of California. but is approximatly 30 % higher than the national norm ( Air Now. 2012 ) . Another of import country that must be addressed is the H2O we drink.
In Merced County most of our imbibing H2O comes from groundwater beginnings which are collected by two public H2O systems. Most all countries in Merced County are affected by three different pollutants: Nitrates. Ethylene Dibromide ( EDB ) . and Dibromochloropropane ( DBCP ) ( Air Now. 2012 ) . Although all three of the pollutants fall below the H2O criterion or eliminated through the public H2O systems. these pollutants will go on to be an issue because EDB and DBCP were used by husbandmans for many old ages to fume harvests.
Another country of concern in community safety is the safety jeopardies within the sociocultural environment. The ability to work. store. or merely sit your motorcycle and feel protected within the country in which you live are of import characteristics in finding the wellness of a community. With 1. 2 constabulary officers and 4. 4 sheriff officers per 100. 000 people and an mean response clip of 3 proceedingss ( Merced County Office of Economic Development. 2012 ) ; most people can be reasonably confident that they and their belongings are protected. However. offense rates have risen in the past few old ages.
In 2009. Merced County experienced 1. 658 violent offenses ; the bulk of which involved aggrivated assult but besides included 26 slayings. 78 physical colzas. and 276 robberies ( United States Department of Justice. 2012 ) . There were besides 4. 390 belongings offenses and 90 instances of incendiarism ( United States Department of Justice. 2012 ) . Rate of discourtesies per 100. 000 are as follows: violent 568. 3. belongings 567. 3. drug 512. 9. sex 37. 9. other 489. 1. and numbering 2. 175. 5 per 100. 000 ( United States Department of Justice. 2012 ) .
Sing there are merely 5. jurisprudence enforcement officers per 100. 000 people. it would look as though offense will go on to lift for the foreseeable hereafter. These Numberss are particularly troublesome sing budget cuts that will certainly impact all public safety sections ( Layoff Watch. 2011 ) . There are a twosome of cultural groups within Merced County that feel particularly vulnerable. the Hispanic community and the Asian community. The Hispanic community about makes-up 50 per centum of the population and is congrigated in the poorest of vicinities. Yet another concern affecting public safety is the ability to obtain medical services.
Within Merced County there are merely two infirmaries that offer exigency medical service. Memorial infirmary of Los Banos and Dignity Health of Merced. Memorial infirmary of Los Banos is a comparatively little infirmary with the ability to acknowledge a sum of 46 patients ( Memorial Hospital Los Banos. 2008 ) . The exigency room has the ability to care for a sum of 6 patient’s necessitating immediate exigency attention. but has the capableness to wing patients out to other installations if required. Dignity Health of Merced is the larger of the two installations and attentions for the bulk of the population of Merced County.
Dignity Health has a sum of 194 beds available. Dignity Health has about 10. 900 admittances per twelvemonth and entire exigency room visits bing about 66. 000 per twelvemonth. On a typical weekend the exigency room will see about 250 patients between the hours of 7 a. m. and7 p. m. ( M. Parker RN. personal communicating. June 8. 2012 ) . Besides functioning the community are 8 primary clinics. The bulk of these clinics are located within the metropolis bounds of Merced and Los Banos. Those placed exterior of these locations will hold to drive upto 30 proceedingss to obtain medical services.
Merced County besides has five psychiatric installations. merely 2 of which are capable of acknowledging patients. Country Villa Merced Behavioral Health Center has 96 beds available for the community and has the ability to care for long-run patients between the ages of 18 to 65 old ages of age ( Country Villa Merced Behavioral Health Center. 2012 ) . Marie Green Psychiatric Center is a smaller installation that has the ability to acknowledge upto 20 patients between the ages of 18 to 65 old ages of age. but this is a short term installation that can merely care for patients for up to 90 yearss.
Presently. in the Merced County country there are no psychiatric installations that have the capableness to care for psychiatric patients under the age of 18 or over the age of 65. Emergency readiness within Merced County is chiefly controlled by the Department of Public Health. Merced County’s exigency readiness was last updated in 2003 and in general references “preparedness. response. recovery. and extenuation activities” ( City of Merced California. 2012 ) . In the readiness stage. activities are concentrated in progress of a catastrophe.
Actions are focused on “implementing hazard extenuation undertakings. developing hazard analyses. developing and keeping exigency programs and processs. carry oning general and specialised preparation. conducting exercisings. developing common assistance understandings. and bettering exigency public instruction and warning systems” ( Merced County California. 2003 ) . In the response stage an exigency state of affairs is at hand or likely to happen. During this phase the county initiates actions to increase its preparedness.
In the recovery stage the focal point is to return public services to Merced county occupants and return any country affected by the exigency to its old status. The extenuation stage occurs before and after exigencies. After a catastrophe or exigency. extenuation or relief. includes “reducing the impact of jeopardies that exist within Merced County” ( Merced County California. 2003 ) . Although Merced County Public Health Department concerns itself with the county as a whole. it must besides do commissariats for countries more susceptable to exigencies or countries where there is an increased trouble to circulate information.
Within these countries there are disproportional cultural minorities. The two primary cultural groups. Hispanic and Asian Americans. are particularily at hazard because of transportational and lodging issues every bit good as dysfunctional attitudes toward catastrophe planning or readiness. Within Merced County the Hispanic community makes up about 50 % of the population and constitutes the bulk of those populating below poorness degree. This translates into the bulk of the population within the economically down countries holding unequal lodging or misfunctioning transit.
When a catastrophe does happen. this group will be the hardest hit as they will non hold the fiscal means to retrieve what they have lost. This group besides has the highest potency for injury due to the inability to relocate to an country that is safe due to transportational issue. What places this group at highest hazard are their attitudes toward catastrophe planning or readiness. After talking with six different households from a down country. all but one household put any idea into a possible exigency. and none of these households had money set aside for such a catastrophe ( personal communicating. June 1. 2012 ) .
