Bibb County finished a disappointing 146th among Georgia’s 159 counties in the area of resident health outcomes, according to a new report compiled by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
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Besides being New Jersey’s healthiest county, Hunterdon is also its wealthiest county.
As with previous years, Smith County’s health outcomes and health factors rankings are higher than neighboring counties, which all have rankings ranging from 100 to 214 for health outcomes; and they range from 90 to 222 for health factors.
Factors like smoking, obesity and financial status had Duval County slipping down five spots from previous year. While Rockland had the best outcomes in 2015, its ranking dropped to 3rd in this year’s study.
The local county’s overall health ranking fell from No. 70 previous year to No. 80 out of all 88 OH counties, according to the 2016 County Health Rankings & Roadmaps, released Wednesday.
The rankings, based on equal weighting for length and quality of life, have been produced in each of the past seven years by the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Rates of adults reporting heavy drinking increased slightly, though the report said Lee is improving when it comes to alcohol-related driving deaths.
But the factors included for physical environment rankings change from year to year, so the rank could be skewed depending on which factors determine ranks each year. “It certainly makes us feel better that we’re moving up”.
“Not unlike any other place, there continue to be health challenges that as a community we work on”, said John Ricci, spokesman for the Monroe County Department of Public Health.
The annual County Health Rankings is created to help counties understand what influences how healthy residents are, and how long they will live.
“It’s unfortunately a little more expensive to eat healthy in this country than eat poorly”. Orange County improved to 18th from 21st a year ago.
The rankings are based on a broad range of measures and show “dramatic differences” between rural and urban areas, particularly for premature deaths.
“We want our data to spark action, and people in rural areas need more opportunities, like good jobs, access to quality health care, quality education, access to healthy, affordable food”. For health factors, Franklin County ranked 49th. “In Marion County, only 70 percent of students are graduating from high school and in Hamilton County, it’s 93 percent”.
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“We’re really heartened to see Atlantic County’s progress, especially its improvement in premature death, our most important measure of health outcomes”, said Robin Mockenhaupt, the chief of staff for RWJF who also oversees its grantmaking in New Jersey.
