2012 County Health Rankings show what influences how healthy residents are, how long they live

More than 3,000 counties and the District of Columbia can compare how healthy their residents are and how long they live with the 2012 County Health Rankings, released April 3 by the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). The Rankings are an annual check-up that highlights the healthiest and least healthy counties in every state, as well as those factors that influence health, outside of the doctor’s office.

The Rankings highlight the importance of critical factors such as education rates, income levels, and access to healthy foods, as well as access to medical care, in influencing how long and how well people live. Now in their third year, the Rankings are increasingly being used by community leaders to help them identify challenges and take action in a variety of ways to improve residents’ health.

Published online at www.countyhealthrankings.org, the Rankings assess the overall health of nearly every county in all 50 states, using a standard way to measure how healthy people are and how long they live. The Rankings consider factors that affect people’s health within four categories: health behavior, clinical care, social and economic factors, and physical environment. This year’s Rankings include several new measures, such as how many fast food restaurants are in a county and levels of physical inactivity among residents. Graphs illustrating premature death trends over 10 years are new as well.

New this year, the County Health Roadmaps will help counties to mobilize and take action to create healthier places. To learn what other communities are doing to improve the health of their residents and how your county can develop plans to address health challenges, click here.

Hotline - April 18, 2012