A new assessment of the health of Island County shows that residents continue to face housing challenges as well as a scarcity of doctors and mental health providers.
Over the past year, Public Health collected more than 1,000 surveys from Island County residents about their well-being for the Community Health Assessment. Highlights of the assessment was presented to the Island County Board of Health at a meeting last week.
As the data collection showed, the health of a community has several underlying factors, including the availability of housing. Data from the 2024 Point-in-Time Count showed 98 unhoused individuals, compared to 67 in the 2023 count.
A total of 16% of Island County homes are vacant, compared to 7% vacant statewide. Of that 16%, the data noted that 66% of this is for seasonal use.
Island County Commissioner Melanie Bacon said this was an interesting data point, as the county works on its comprehensive plan update which will involve a discussion about vacation rentals.
Though the county has a slightly lower median house price ($597,300) compared to the state ($613,000), 34% of households in the county are spending more than 30% of their income on housing, compared to 30% of the state.
“I’m just thankful I’m old and I got in the housing market before all this happened,” Island County Commissioner Jill Johnson said.
In regards to the ratio of mental health care providers per population, the county is at a disadvantage, with one provider per 320 people compared to the state number of one provider per 200 people. A participant from an Oak Harbor focus group noted that there are no counselors who speak Spanish.
Island County Commissioner Janet St. Clair said she found that ratio to be very concerning, adding that mental health and substance abuse treatment should be accessible to constituents.
Johnson agreed that it is an important statistic because the state and counties have been in a two-year conversation to define the difference between access to care and network adequacy.
“This really illustrates clearly the difference between what the state is trying to say is meeting contractual standards and what local communities are trying to say is a broken system,” she said.
Similarly, the ratio of health care physicians per population is also higher than the state, with one physician per 2,240 people in the county and one physician per 1,200 people in the state.
Childhood immunizations in the county are also low compared to the state, with 25% of vaccination coverage for the 4-6 year milestones in the county compared to 42% in the state, among other statistics.
