Colusa County officials question health study results

Colusa County health officials question a recent study placing the county as the third healthiest in the state.

Colusa ranked third while neighboring Glenn County ranked 30th, Tehama County ranked 47th, Yolo County ranked 12th, Lake County ranked 54th, Sutter County ranked 21st and Yuba County ranked 52nd out of 56 California counties that were studied.

The rankings were supposedly based on a standard formula, in a study sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Colusa was topped only by Marin and San Benito counties.

"As much as I want to say 'yeah, we ranked third,' I want to be realistic," said Beth Meyerson, Colusa County Health Services director. "I wouldn't say we are the worst, but we have a long way to go as far as health is concerned."

Meyerson said because of Colusa's small population and the likelihood of a small number of people studied, it would only take a few people with positive health outcomes to skew the numbers.

"That is the danger of statistics," Meyerson said.

The 2010 County Health Rankings is the first-of-its kind collection of 50 reports that reflect the overall health of counties in every state.

The study indicated Colusa scored high in health outcomes, which measured the length and quality of residents' lives.

However, the study also looked at clinical care access and quality, health behaviors and a series of social and economic factors, including education, employment and income.

The study placed Colusa County in line with neighboring counties on health behaviors such as smoking, alcohol use and diet.

Colusa County ranked 31st in the state for health factors, such as adult obesity and teen birth rate; 44th for economic factors, such as single parent households and the number of children living in poverty; and 56th — dead last — in clinical care, such as the number of uninsured adults.

"We still have a lot of health care issues," Meyerson said, "particularly access to insurance and medical care."

The Robert Wood Johnson report is not the first explosive new study to alarm health care professionals in Colusa County.

New studies and recommendations recently released by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force for mammography screening has caused a lot of confusion for Colusa Regional Medical Center patients, according to Rhonda Anderson, radiology manager.

Hospital officials and health care professionals around the country have rejected the Task Force analysis, which stated the benefit from routine mammography screening of women in their 40s was too low to offset the harms.

"Dr. Berg, a board certified diagnostic radiologist and breast imaging specialist, along with the radiology staff of Colusa Regional Medical Center, strongly disagree," Anderson said in a statement.

Dr. Wendie Berg, an associate of Johns Hopkins University Hospital and whose "Benefits of Screening Mammography" was published in the Jan. 13 issue of "The Journal of the American Medical Association," pointed out that the Task Force study used randomized controlled trials, in which a woman invited to participate in the trials, but who never has a mammogram and dies of breast cancer, is counted as having been screened.

Randomized controlled trails also allow for variations in image quality and deviations from the current screening mammography standards, according to Berg.

In an effort to clarify the information with their patients, Anderson has begun sharing exerts of Berg's article, which, in part, states breast cancer remains a leading cause of premature death for women in their 40s, and that mammography screening significantly reduces the risk of death due to breast cancer.

More than 40,000 women die from breast cancer each year, of whom 18 percent were diagnosed during their 40s, health officials said, with mammography screening preventing more than 2,000 deaths per year.

According to estimates from the Breast Cancer Surveillance Consortium, for every 1,000 women in their 40s screened once with mammography in the U.S., 80 to 100 will be called back for additional evaluation; 45 to 65 will have no findings of concern; 20 may be asked to return in six months; 15 will be recommended for biopsy and 2 to 5 will be found to have breast cancer.

Dr. Dale Bass, board certified radiologist and director of Colusa Regional Medical Center's Department of Radiology, added that he recommends that women between the ages of 35 and 40, with a strong family history of breast cancer, have their first baseline screening mammogram. He then recommends all women 40 and older have annual mammograms.

"I would not want my daughter waiting until she was 50 to begin screening mammography," Bass said in a statement. "Colusa Regional Medical Center will continue to follow the American College of Radiology guidelines for screening mammography."

Anderson said that while they are getting a lot of calls from people looking for clarification, they stand behind Dr. Bass's and the American College of Radiology guidelines, and encourage any woman with questions or concerns to contact her physician or the Colusa Regional Medical Center Radiology Department at 458-3264.

Contact Susan Meeker at 458-2121 or smeeker@tcnpress.com.