The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA

Abstract #65017

Jim E. Banta, MPH¹, Evelyn G. Trevino, MS², Disep I. Obuge, MPH³, Jason Babiera, MPH¹, and Kendall Kerekes, MS⁴. (1) Department of Behavioral Health, County of San Bernardino, 700 East Gilbert St., San Bernardino, CA 92415-0920, (909) 387-7030, jbanta@dbh.co.san-bernardino.ca.us, (2) Department of Public Health, County of San Bernardino, 351 North Mountain View Ave., San Bernardino, CA 92415-0010, (3) School of Public Health, Loma Linda University, Attn: P. Singh, Nichol Hall 2005, Loma Linda, CA 92350, (4) County of San Bernardino, Performance, Education and Resource Center, 504 N. Mountain View Ave., San Bernardino, CA 92415-0038

Public Health Departments have a mandate to perform monitoring functions, though the emphasis is often on communicable diseases and maternal/child health. This monitoring includes studying individual factors and identifying population characteristics that correspond to high rates of certain conditions. An analysis of chronic diseases using hospital discharge data for a large Southern California county found that mental disorders were a common reason for hospitalization, exceeded only by cardiovascular diseases. This suggests the value of collaboration with county behavioral health departments. Such collaboration can combine public health methods and expertise with an understanding of public mental health issues to produce analysis valuable to both departments. In particular, one can determine if readily available socio-economic measures are useful in explaining rates of psychiatric hospitalization and if there are similar relationships of those socio-economic measures to hospitalizations for chronic, generally non-fatal medical conditions. In addition, the usefulness of survey data not containing small-area detail, such as the ongoing California Health Interview Survey (CHIS), can be assessed to see if it contributes to a better understanding of psychiatric admissions. One form of collaboration is to combine California Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development (OSPHD) discharge data, zip code level socio-demographics from Census 2000 and CHIS data regarding mental health issues. From this analytic file, diagnosis specific, zip code level admission rates can be calculated and maps produced. Analysis of individual-level data with multiple logistic regression techniques can be used to compare admissions for specific categories of mental illness with chronic medical condition(s).

Learning Objectives:

• Recognize one method by which public health departments can collaborate with behavioral health departments.
• Assess the usefulness of including publicly available survey data to local monitoring.

Keywords: Public Mental Health, Public Health Agency Roles

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: County of San Bernardino
I have a significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.
Relationship: employment