County-by-County Rankings Show What Influences Health, Longevity
This week the annual County Health Rankings were revealed. It ranks counties in every state, including the District of Columbia, on overall health and wellness measures.
Congratulations Fayette County, Angela Russell says you are the healthiest region in Georgia.
“They’re doing well with the percent of adults that smoke so limited adult smoking, low teen birth rate, they have good access to primary care physician and good educational outcomes” says the associate researcher with the University of Wisconsin.
The university’s Population Health Institute compiled the rankings using data from 2006 thru 2008.
Russell says various measures were used to analyze more than 3,000 counties, “including health care but also health behaviors, social and economic factors such as income, education and employment and the physical environment including air quality, access to healthy food and access to recreational facilities.”
Many of the state’s counties at the bottom of the ranking are in the southern part of Georgia well below the metropolitan area.
Talbot County, in west Georgia, is ranked last and according to Russell, “ they’ve got a very high premature death rate, 35% of the adult population down there is obese and a lot adults reporting no physical activity and lots of people who are living with limited access to health foods.”
Russell says the importance of the ranking is to provide a checklist for state and local initiatives to improve the health of its residents.
Link to the Georgia section of the report:
http://www.countyhealthrankings.org/app/georgia/2012/rankings/outcomes/overall
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