february • 2008

inside this issue

UC's medical centers at Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego rank second in the state as a provider of Medi-Cal services.
In Orange, Sacramento and San Diego counties, UC is the major provider of care to uninsured and underinsured patients.
UC medical centers operate four Level I trauma centers and staff the trauma center at San Francisco General Hospital.

research in action:

working for the people in california

This special report highlights UC's efforts to help communities battle youth violence. UC Riverside and UC Berkeley are among the 10 national universities - and the only two in California - that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has designated as Academic Centers of Excellence in Youth Violence Prevention.

Chemical exposures cost California $2.6 billion

Existing hazardous chemical laws fail to protect public health and the environment, according to UCLA and UC Berkeley researchers.

Pollution-related diseases cost the state's insurers, families and businesses an estimated $2.6 billion, according to a report the California Environmental Protection Agency commissioned titled "Green Chemistry: Cornerstone to a Sustainable California."

The report puts a dollar figure on the cost of chemical exposure illnesses. It also makes recommendations similar to those contained in a 2006 UC report to the state Legislature, which advocated safer "green chemistry" policies.

In 2004, more than 200,000 California workers were diagnosed with chronic diseases such as cancer or emphysema attributable to workplace chemical exposures, according to the report. Another 4,400 died. Those diseases cost $1.4 billion in medical costs, lost wages and benefits. An additional $1.2 billion in direct and indirect costs is attributed to 240,000 cases of preventable childhood diseases linked to chemical exposures.

The report recommends passing new laws to improve data availability on chemical toxicity and calls for California to lead the nation in designing chemicals and manufacturing processes that are safer for humans. The full report can be found at http://coeh.berkeley.edu/greenchemistry/briefing.