“One of the greatest disparities in this country is that some places are healthy, but others are not,” announces a new report from the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute.
Researchers at the university have compiled a long list of factors measuring health in every U.S. county. They count how long people live, what percentage of the population is obese, how many people use tobacco. Are there grocery stores nearby? Doctors? Hospitals? Is the air clean and are the roads safe?
The measurements aren’t good for comparing counties across state lines. (Different states collect data in different ways.) But the data collected in the County Health Rankings project is great for comparing the overall health of counties within states. (Go here to find your county’s health ranking.)
The map above shows the five most and least healthy counties in each state. Healthy counties are in green and unhealthy counties are in red. (On the next page, you can find a chart showing the healthiest and least healthy counties in each state.)
County Health Rankings finds that rural counties generally are less healthy than urban ones. “Healthier counties are urban/suburban, whereas least health counties are mostly rural,” the researchers found. “About half (48%) of the 50 healthiest counties are urban or suburban counties, whereas most (84%) of the 50 least healthy counties are rural.” (See chart below.)
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