New County Health Rankings Out For Wyoming – Natrona County In Bottom 10

According to the annual County Health Rankings just released, residents of Fremont County are three times more likely to die a premature death than those in Teton County - and Natrona County is in the bottom 10 of Wyoming's 23 counties when it comes to being healthy.  See some of the rest of their findings after the jump:

This is the second year of the County Health Rankings - where they rank the overall health of nearly every county in all 50 states by using a standard way to measure how healthy people are, and how long they live.   According to this year's report - here's the ten healthiest counties in Wyoming, starting with most healthy:

1. Teton
2. Converse
3. Park
4. Washakie
5. Crook
6. Lincoln
7. Goshen
8. Sublette
9. Niobrara
10. Albany

The 10 counties in the poorest health, starting with least healthy:

1. Fremont
2. Weston
3. Uinta
4. Hot Springs
5. Carbon
6. Sweetwater
7. Natrona
8. Laramie
9. Sheridan
10. Campbell

Seems that our healthiest counties are in the northwest and southeast, least healthy are in central and southwest Wyoming.

The Rankings, available March 30 at 12:01 a.m. at www.countyhealthrankings.org, includes a snapshot of each county in Wyoming with a color-coded map comparing each county’s overall health ranking.  Researchers used five measures to assess the level of overall health or “health outcomes” for Wyoming by county: the rate of people dying before age 75, the percent of people who report being in fair or poor health, the numbers of days people report being in poor physical and poor mental health, and the rate of low-birthweight infants.

The Rankings also looks at factors that affect people’s health within four categories: health behavior, clinical care, social and economic factors, and physical environment. Among the many health factors they looked at: rates of adult smoking, adult obesity, excessive drinking among adults, and teenage births; the number of uninsured adults, availability of primary care providers, and preventable hospital stays; rates of high school graduation, adults who have attended college, children in poverty; and community safety; access to healthy foods and air pollution levels.

“The County Health Rankings help everyone see that much of what influences our health happens outside of the doctor’s office and where we live matters to our health,” says Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, M.D., M.B.A., president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. “The good news is that there are things counties can do right away to help their residents lead healthier lives. We hope this second annual release of County Health Rankings data will spur all sectors – government, business, community and faith-based groups, education and public health – to work together to find solutions and take action and implement programs and policy changes to improve health.”

To help counties translate the Rankings into action, Dr. Lavizzo-Mourey today said the Foundation was launching a new program to help communities improve the health of their residents. Under this new program—part of an initiative called Mobilizing Action Toward Community Health—RWJF will provide grants to up to 14 communities around the country to strengthen broad-based community efforts to improve health.

What do you think about the study?

(Information via Burness Communications,  the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the University Of Wisconsin Population Health Institute.)