In Orange County, for example, 29 percent of the area’s three million residents were born outside the state and 41 percent speak a language other than English at home; in Santa Clara County, 45 percent of the area’s almost two million residents are foreign-born, with the largest numbers of these immigrants coming from Vietnam, China, the Philippines, India, and Mexico; and in San Francisco County more than one-third of the area’s residents are foreign-born and close to half speak a language other than English at home.
Tour participants also thought government could do more to let immigrant women know what services are available to them. As an example, they point to the fact that, unlike other public aid programs that bar undocumented people from benefits, both documented and undocumented immigrant women are eligible for the Women, Infants, and Children Program (WIC), which provides nutrition information and supplemental nutritious foods.
Preventive health care and awareness
Tour participants identified a need to expand access to health clinics that provide free or low-cost prevention, diagnostic and treatment services. For women of all ages, this includes access to reproductive and sexual health services, such as contraception, family planning and testing for sexually transmitted diseases. An estimated 40 percent of high school students in California are sexually active, and nearly five percent of young women aged 15–19 gave birth in California in 2001. In Shasta County, the birth rate for white teens is 70 percent higher than in the rest of the state, underscoring why Tour participants in rural areas emphasized the need for expanded reproductive and sexual health services. Adolescents and young adults also have the highest rates of chlamydia and gonorrhea, the most common sexually transmitted infections in California.
According to the Public Health Institute, poverty is the strongest link to teen pregnancy, indicating that a population’s economic status and their access to programs and services that prevent unwanted pregnancies are directly connected. California’s investment in comprehensive teen pregnancy prevention and reproductive health programs in the late 1990s has had a measurable impact on decreasing both teen pregnancy rates and the rates of sexually transmitted disease. Annual teen birth rates in California have decreased in the last decade. By 2001, rates in California were similar to the average in the US overall: 45.2 per 1,000 for California versus 45.8 for the country.
