WHEREAS, The year 2023 was a flashpoint for sudden cardiac arrest awareness in the United States with several high-profile incidents, including incidents in California, and dozens of new state and federal laws introduced to combat gaps in heart safety; and

WHEREAS, California has the highest number of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests, with 31,500 people stricken in 2022, including hundreds of youth; and

WHEREAS, California has one of the lowest sudden cardiac arrest survival rates at just 7.8 percent, well below the national average of 9.3 percent; and

WHEREAS, Californias communities are still unprepared to respond to a cardiac emergency, as evidenced by the fact that just 41 percent of California sudden cardiac arrest victims receive cardiopulmonary resuscitation from a bystander and only 9.6 percent receive a shock from a publicly accessible automated external defibrillator (AED); and

WHEREAS, Those outcomes are even lower for Black or Hispanic persons or in Black or Hispanic communities; and

WHEREAS, Communities that employ a Call-Push-Shock culture to empower bystanders to call 911, start hands-only CPR, and use the nearest AED have higher survival rates; and

WHEREAS, Communities that empower people to deliver hands-only CPR can triple a victims chance of survival, and communities that make AEDs readily available can increase the survival rate up to 90 percent; and

WHEREAS, Communities need to be notified as to where nearby AEDs are so that the AED is able to be used by a bystander in the first minutes of a victims collapse; and

WHEREAS, There is a persistent lack of awareness about what sudden cardiac arrest is, which is when a victims heart has stopped beating and they have stopped breathing, making immediate intervention in the first three to five minutes critical; and

WHEREAS, Warning signs and risk factors of a heart condition that can cause sudden cardiac arrest often go unrecognized or unreported, which is why it is important to obtain a comprehensive cardiac risk assessment, especially in youth where this an evolving standard of care; now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the Senate of the State of California, That the Senate hereby proclaims October to be Sudden Cardiac Arrest Awareness Month in California, a foundation from which to build a culture of prevention at home, in school, on the field, with our medical providers, in the workplace, and throughout our diverse communities by emphasizing the critical need to identify heart conditions through early detection screening, and encouraging cardiac emergency response planning to empower citizens to Call-Push-Shock in a cardiac emergency, to affect an increase in sudden cardiac arrest survival in California; and be it further

Resolved, That the Secretary of the Senate transmit copies of this resolution to the author for appropriate distribution.

SR 50

Current Status:

News Coverage: