User:Jolly315/Central Valley (California)

Health
The valley gives its name to Valley fever, which is primarily a disease of the lungs that is common in the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico. It is caused by the fungus Coccidioides immitis, which grows in soils in areas of low rainfall, high summer temperatures, and moderate winter temperatures. These fungal spores become airborne when the soil is disturbed by winds, construction, or farming. This illness frequently takes weeks or months to resolve. Occasionally Valley Fever is life-threatening or even fatal.

Due to the agricultural industry's large presence in the Valley, pesticide drift and leaching have become concerns. Residents risk contamination when living in proximity of application sites.

Joanne Lee (Jolly315)

Oral Health

Oral health discrepancies affect living groups across the Central Valley. Current investigations for the causes of oral health discrepancies in the Central Valley point towards a few main causes (but not limited to): language barriers, financial barriers, and lack of dental education.

DentaQuest, an organization that aims to provide equal dental care, has conducted studies in conjunction with the Fresno State Central Valley Health Policy Institute to investigate the origins of oral health differences in the Central Valley. A study by DentaQuest that observed groups of Spanish-speaking Latinos showed a major cause of dental health disparities in the Central Valley lay in linguistic causes (8). Subsequently, another study by DentaQuest measured the effect of introducing dental education courses to workers in the Central Valley that encounter language barriers; the result was an overall increase in understanding of oral health (7). Studies show another potential correlation between dental visits in the Central Valley and oral health (5). Causes for varied dental visits related to both financial reasons and individual perceptions of dental care (5).

While cases have been conducted to identify causes of oral health discrepancies in the Central Valley, investigations are still forthcoming into identifying solutions to areas with poorer oral health statistics.

Catelyn Nguyen (C_nguyen143)

Air Pollution

Air pollution is a growing problem that affects all of the citizens in the Central Valley. Some reasons of poor air pollution in the Central Valley are due to agriculture and its geographical features.

Since the Central Valley consists mostly of farming land, a wide, flat valley, the emissions from the soil that is used for growing produce are released into the air. The soil exudes nitrous oxide, a odorless and colorless gas that can be harmful when exposed to it for a long period of time, and incorporates itself into the ozone layer located at ground level. Production of nitrous oxide in California have shown that the addition of soil and fertilization can emit about 161,100 metric tons per year. Long term effects that nitrous oxide can have on a human being is loss of blood pressure, fainting, anemia, or lung cancer.

The physical geographical attributes can also contribute to the air pollution quality. The Central Valley is surrounded by mountain ranges which can capture the pollution coming from the agricultural farming, preventing it from dispersing from the other areas in California.

The Central Valley is also expanding in the amount of people that coincide in that area, so it increases the amount of cars which can also contribute to the amount of emission that is in the air.