A coalition led by UC Davis Health System is launching a campaign to reduce Yuba County’s cancer rate, the highest in the state.

Yuba County’s all-cancer mortality rate is the highest among California’s 58 counties. The county also ranks 56th in deaths from coronary heart disease, and 55th in deaths from diabetes.

The Healthy Yuba County project will study contributing factors to the high rates – tobacco is a top suspect – and propose programs to reduce that incidence, according to Bruce Leistikow, associate professor of public health sciences at UC Davis School of Medicine and Medical Center and lead epidemiologist for the project.

Besides UC Davis Health System, the other founding partners in the Healthy Yuba County Initiative are the Yuba County Health and Human Services Department and the Fremont-Rideout Health Group, based in Yuba City. The three groups provided start-up funds to collect baseline data, examine local health-care patterns and analyze preliminary results. The partners will seek public and private grants for ongoing funding.

More than a dozen other community organizations will join the effort, including the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, Harmony Health, the American Lung Association, Del Norte Clinic, Peach Tree Clinic, the Marysville Unified School District, the Beale Air Force Base public health department, the Yuba County Tobacco Coalition, the Migrant Workers Association, the Hmong Association, the Cancer Surveillance Program, Region 3, Yuba County for Healthy Children and the Yuba County Office of Education.

UC Davis Cancer Center and the Fremont-Rideout Health Group are partners in Fremont-Rideout Cancer Center, a comprehensive cancer treatment center in Marysville. The partnership enables cancer patients in Yuba and Sutter counties to receive treatment from UC Davis Cancer Center specialists without having to drive to Sacramento.