People who live in Oildale, Kern River Valley and Taft — three impoverished, majority-white communities — have the highest premature death rates across Kern County, dying four to 17 years sooner than those in other parts of Bakersfield.
Residents in those three communities have an average life expectancy of between 68 and 72 years old — roughly eight to 10 years less than the national average, according to data analyzed by the Virginia Commonwealth University’s Center for Human Needs.
It’s on par with life expectancies in less-developed countries like Iraq, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.
The culprit, health professionals say?
Drugs and poverty. But it may run deeper than that.
Many in Lake Isabella, and the surrounding communities that make up the Kern River Valley, live in trailers or shotgun houses and survive off disability and Social Security checks. Fewer than 10 percent on average have earned college degrees. Annual median incomes hover around $18,000 and dip as low as $8,000 for some households. It’s riddled with broken homes.
Mark Gordon, a chief nursing officer at the Kern Valley Hospital, stated it more succinctly: “There’s hopelessness.”
....New mothers in Kern County lead the state when it comes to enduring adverse childhood experiences.
About 11.6 percent of Kern County mothers reported experiencing four or more hardships during their childhoods, roughly 4 percentage points higher than the state average. An additional 20 percent reported enduring two to three hardships, according to a California Department of Public Health study of more than 14,000 mothers between 2011 and 2012.
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