Plan takes aim at disparities in King County

King County will evaluate programs and give managers additional training to narrow racial and economic disparities, County Executive Ron Sims said Monday.

Sims, citing statistics indicating that poor people and people of color are more likely to drop out of school and to receive poorer health care than other citizens, outlined a new Equity and Social Justice Initiative.

"It is unacceptable that the color of your skin or your home address are now good predictors of whether you will have a low-birth-weight baby, die from diabetes or your children will graduate from high school or end up in jail," Sims said in a statement.

Public Health Director David Fleming said his staff members will "look at public health through an equity lens" to figure out if they can improve the health of the poor and disenfranchised.

More than half the patients in some county clinics don't speak English, Fleming said. Many public-health workers speak the approximately 100 languages of their patients — but those workers are spread out among various locations.

Fleming said Public Health will compile a database of its employees' language skills. "Knowing who we can call — that sounds so simple that why haven't we done it already? — that's a very important step we can take."

Through the "Thrive by Five" program in White Center, Fleming said, county nurses will visit expectant mothers and mothers of infants who are at higher-than-average risk of having health problems and learning disabilities.

Here are some other actions promised in a 28-page report outlining the initiative:

• Systems will be put in place to make sure "promoting equity is an integral part of doing business."

• Decision-making will incorporate "meaningful input" from disadvantaged communities.

• Corrections officials will study whether more members of minority groups overrepresented in jail can be supervised through community corrections programs instead.

• The county and the Puget Sound Educational Service District will hold a regional forum on closing the achievement gap between children of different races.

Sims gave a preview of the initiative in an opinion piece Sunday in The Seattle Times, writing that the income gap between rich and poor has widened, with King County's African Americans falling further behind whites both in family income and in rates of homeownership between 1970 and 2000.

"We all need to own the reality of inequity by tearing down the curtain that hides it, by naming it, measuring it, talking about it, and by tracking our progress and solving it," Sims said in his statement Monday.

Keith Ervin: 206-464-2105 or kervin@seattletimes.com