Over the last few decades, there has been significant growth in the measurement and reporting of health care quality outcomes. As health care evolves, it is important to continue to monitor and report on the quality of care delivered to patients in California and across the US. This is part of a series of measures CHCF publishes on the quality of care in our state. Topics range from maternal to end-of-life care, and include measures on behavioral health, chronic conditions, and providers.

This set of quality measures focuses on a range of chronic conditions, including diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disease, and respiratory disease, and includes data by race/ethnicity, payer, and county.

Many adults in California have been diagnosed with chronic conditions.

Chronic conditions, such as diabetes and heart disease, were the leading cause of death and disability in the United States. In 2021, obesity and high blood pressure were the most common chronic conditions in California, affecting more than one in four adults. Prevalence of chronic conditions varied by race/ethnicity.

Hospitalizations for preventable chronic conditions varied by race/ethnicity.

Based on a composite measure of hospital admission rates for eight chronic conditions, between 2017 and 2019, nearly 700 hospitalizations per 100,000 people in California were potentially preventable through effective chronic care management and access to high-quality primary care. The preventable chronic condition hospitalization rate varied by race/ethnicity, ranging from a high of 1,719 for Black adults to a low of 361 for Asian, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander adults.

Mortality rates for four leading cancers varied by race/ethnicity.

Alaska Native and American Indian and Black Californians had higher mortality rates for breast, prostate, lung, and colorectal cancer than other races/ethnicities. The largest disparities were with prostate and lung cancer. The prostate cancer mortality rate for Alaska Native and American Indian and Black men was two times higher than the overall rate in California. The lung cancer mortality rate for Alaska Native and American Indian Californians was well over two times higher than the state’s overall rate.

The companion Excel data file is available for download below. These materials are part of CHCF’s California Health Care Almanac, an online clearinghouse for key data and analyses describing the state’s health care landscape. See our entire collection of current and past editions of Quality of Care.