Yolo County Health Department

The health department is responsible for protecting and improving the health of residents of Yolo County and assuring that quality health services are available and accessible.

Public health differs from medical health services by looking at the entire population, preventing diseases, and improving the health of the community. Medical health services focus on the individual and diagnosing and treating disease. Since 1900, the average life expectancy for Americans has increased by about 30 years. Over 25 of the 30 years can be atributed to public health initiatives, while medical advances account for less than four years.

Public Health Services for Yolo County include:

• Detection and prevention of communicable diseases
• Health Education, with emphasis on tobacco education and prevention, HIV and Hepatitis C education, counseling and testing, nutrition and physical activity, vehicle passenger safety, and lead poisoning prevention
• Immunizations
• Birth and Death records
• Support and monitoring of services for vulnerable populations, families with children, senior citizens, and other special health needs
• Rabies case investigation and control measures
• Inspections of food preparation outlets
• Inspection of public and private water supply systems
• Health data and assessments
• Emergency Preparedness activities including hazardous materials spills, food borne illness outbreaks, and possible bioterrorist events
• Provide health and dental services for children with chronic health problems, indigent populations, people who are incarcerated, and residents receiving adult day health services
• Public Health laboratory and consultation services to local clinical laboratories, health care providers, and Health Department programs

The staff consists of physicians, public health nurses, microbiologists, environmental health specialists, epidemiologists, certified health educators, and a variety of community health representatives located in offices in Woodland and West Sacramento.

They conduct restaurant and food facility inspections.

• Yolo County Restaurant Inspections

Click the link above to see health violations of Davis and Davis area restaurants. Keep in mind that most restaurants that are perfectly safe get a few citations each time around. If the inspector thought there were any danger posed to public health, they'd shut the place down until the problems were fixed. They just started putting the reports on-line, so most don't have any inspection up yet. Normal, clean restaurants and facilities like Nugget, Posh Bagel and Subway all have several violations, some critical (which just mean they have to be corrected for a follow up inspection). Don't be horrified if your favorite restaurant has several violations... it does not mean it is terribly unclean. Keep in mind the examples listed are just examples, not actual things found at that facility. Violations highlight areas of improvement, not indicate that it is dangerous to eat there. Places that are actually dangerous get closed down until they comply.

If you're more squeamish than curious, you might not want to go through the list. Your kitchen is likelier more dangerous (Do you have unbreakable, enclosed light covers on every light source? Have you ever seen a bug, dead or alive, in your house or apartment? Do you mark the time you remove something from a fridge? Do you have a separate sink used only for washing hands?), but you're also not serving food to large numbers of people every day. If you have no problem going through a farm and then sitting down to a meal, or like to go camping or picnicing and pick the occasional bug out of your food, you're probably okay.

If you have an idealistic view of your food, and you honestly think that shrink wrapped bag of chips came from a pristine source, rather than a bunch of dirt covered, industrially washed potatoes, or your orange juice box is anything other than oranges that were bruised, spotted or otherwise not pleasing enough to sell individually, it might be a good idea to not read these reports and maintain your illusion that food is a sterile product with no origin or preparation.

In the end, the fact that the restaurant is open indicates that they were found to be safe.