By Lorna Stone, Vice President of Programs
Last month the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute issued 2011 County Health Rankings, with new data illustrating both health factors and health outcomes rankings for every county.
The rankings are snapshots of the health of counties throughout the nation, based on a wide variety of measures from mortality and quality of life to high school graduation, unemployment, obesity, and air quality.
Like the Report Card of the Healthiest State Campaign, the rankings model emphasizes that health care is just one of the many determinants of our health. This year the website includes a new a tool – a county health calculator. The tool demonstrates the relationships among two key indicators and an outcome - education, income and premature deaths.
This map shows how Washington counties rank on health factors, including behaviors, clinical care, social and economic factors, and physical environment. Details about the factors for each county are available on the interactive map on the web.
One of the things we notice is not a surprise: the counties ranking lowest in health factors all have high rural populations. In rank order , numbers 39 to 30 are Ferry, Grays Harbor, Pacific, Adams, Pend Oreille, Yakima, Cowlitz, Okanogan, Skamania, and Mason.
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