BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 2340
Page 1
Date of Hearing: May 6, 2014
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON HEALTH
Richard Pan, Chair
AB 2340 (Garcia) - As Amended: March 28, 2014
SUBJECT : State Department of Public Health: Office of Health
Equity.
SUMMARY : Authorizes the Deputy Director of the Office of Health
Equity (OHE) to include representatives from women's health
organizations that focus on health disparities on an advisory
committee.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Establishes the OHE within the Department of Public Health
(DPH) whose aim is to reduce health and mental health
disparities in vulnerable communities.
2)Requires OHE to establish an advisory committee and to consult
with community-based organizations and local governmental
agencies to ensure that community perspectives and input are
included in policies, strategic plans, recommendations, and
implementation activities.
3)Requires the advisory committee to include representatives
from state agencies and departments, local health departments,
community-based organizations, and service providers working
to advance health and mental health equity for vulnerable
communities.
FISCAL EFFECT : None
COMMENTS :
1)PURPOSE OF THIS BILL . According to the author the OHE was
created in 2012 by consolidating the Office of Women's Health
with the Office of Multicultural Health, and while the broad
focus of OHE seeks to eliminate health disparities across a
wide range of vulnerable communities, including individuals
that face more than one type of oppression, the focus of the
office fails to fully acknowledge the importance of gender.
Women and girls are members of all other vulnerable
communities listed as a focus for OHE, but policy and guidance
AB 2340
Page 2
does not require the analysis of the inequities faced solely
or particularly by women. The author asserts that by creating
an expansive focus on numerous other important communities,
the OHE is allowing women's specific issues and needs to be
swallowed up by the needs of the broader community and in
order to fully address issues of gender inequality, women's
lives must be at the center of analysis, with examination of
women's experience through the lens of gender, and focusing on
ways that gender intersects with other social categories.
2)BACKGROUND . Current law establishes the OHE, which was
created to work to achieve the highest level of health and
mental health for all people, with special attention focus on
those who have experienced socioeconomic disadvantages and
historical injustice, including vulnerable communities and
culturally, linguistically, and geographically isolated
communities. Vulnerable communities are identified as women,
racial and ethnic groups, low-income families and individuals,
the current and formerly incarcerated, individuals with
disabilities or mental health conditions, children, youth and
young adults, senior, immigrants and refugees, the
limited-English proficient, LGBT populations, or combinations
of those populations. The OHE is tasked with conducting
policy analysis, establishing a comprehensive, cross-sector
strategic plan to eliminate health and mental health
disparities and inequities, and collaborate with and build
upon the work of the Health in All Policies Task Force. To
accomplish these goals, OHE has an advisory committee to
actively participate in decision making. The advisory
committee currently has eight members, one of which has
expertise in maternal and infant health care, but none of
which is specifically tasked with looking at health
disparities from the perspective of women and girls.
3)SUPPORT . Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California (PPAC)
supports this bill and states, thousands of women walk through
Planned Parenthood's doors every day and in order to help
those who have experienced socioeconomic disadvantages and
historical injustice, women need to be kept at the forefront
of the conversation. According to PPAC, allowing the OHE to
include representatives from women's health organizations that
focus on health disparities faced by women and girls will do
just that by providing the gender lens in both the
representation on the advisory committee and the work of the
OHE.
AB 2340
Page 3
The American Civil Liberties Union of California writes in
support that in order to fully address issues of gendered
inequality, women's lives must be at the center of analysis,
with examination of women's experience through the lens of
gender, and focusing on ways that gender intersects with other
social categories.
4)PREVIOUS LEGISLATION . AB 1467 (Committee on Budget), Chapter
23, Statutes of 2012, among other things, created the OHE at
the DPH. The OHE is a consolidation of functions of the
Office of Women's Health at the Department of Health Care
Services, the Office of Multicultural Services at the
Department of Mental Health, the Office of Multicultural
Health at DPH, the Health in All Policies Task Force at DPH,
and the Healthy Places Team at DPH.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
American Civil Liberties Union of California
NARAL Pro-Choice California
Planned Parenthood of California
Opposition
None on file.
Analysis Prepared by : Lara Flynn / HEALTH / (916) 319-2097