Report Identifies Health Gaps By County
By Christine Kern, contributing writer
Health gaps within states are the subject of a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation report comparing each state’s counties against its healthiest county in order to improve healthcare statewide. The County Health Rankings and Roadmaps, a joint project operated with the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, intentionally focuses on the state level and makes no comparisons between states.
As the report states, “Poor health disproportionately burdens people who live in places that limit opportunities to live long and well. These gaps in health outcomes are costly and preventable. Gaps in health could be narrowed, if not eliminated, if we took steps to create more equitable opportunities. Improving education in counties that need it most is one example. That step and others can lead to higher incomes and more lifetime stability.”
The aim of the study was to identify opportunities available within each state to bring every county to the health level of its healthiest county and to note how many deaths could be avoided by doing so. The report identifies what health gaps are and why they matter; the size and nature of the health gaps among counties; what factors are influencing the health of residents; and what state and local communities can do to address these existing health gaps.
The study also asserts, “Giving everyone a fair chance to be healthy does not necessarily mean offering everyone the same resources to be healthy, but rather offering people specific resources necessary for their good health.” The report focuses on the gaps in opportunity for health that current exist between counties in each state and provides strategies to close those gaps.
Counties were assessed based on length of life (50 percent) and quality of life (50 percent); as well as on health behaviors (30 percent), clinical care (20 percent), social and economic factors (40 percent), and physical environment (10 percent).
“Americans love rankings,” Bridget Catlin, program director at the Population Health Institute in Madison, told Modern Healthcare. “But we wanted to identify opportunities toward providing everybody a fair chance to be their healthiest and how many deaths could be avoided if every county could be as healthy as the healthiest.”