Apr. 16—The Lake County General Health District announced that the county has ranked among the healthiest for both health outcomes and health factors in the “2023 County Health Rankings.”
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation — the nation’s largest public health philanthropy, headquartered in New Jersey — in conjunction with the University of Wisconsin-Madison Population Health Institute, recently released its comprehensive annual report that ranks the overall health of nearly every county across all 50 states by way of a standardized methodology to measure health factors and outcomes.
According to the study, for over 12 years, report data have shown how a wide range of factors influence how long and how well people live.
This year, the findings focus on the connection between civic health and thriving people and places. Civic health, the results state, reflects the opportunities people have to participate in their communities.
Moreover, two elements of civic health were examined:
—Civic infrastructure: includes spaces, such as schools, parks and libraries that help individuals stay connected, as well as policies and practices that foster belonging, making civic participation possible
—Civic participation: includes the ways people engage in community life to improve conditions and shape the community’s future, including political activities, such as voting and advocacy, and community activities, such as volunteering and mentoring
Based on the report, health outcomes additionally include length and quality of life measures, and health factors include behaviors, clinical care, social and economic factors, and physical environment.
Overall, Lake County dropped in its ranking from 12th in 2022 to 16th in 2023 for health outcomes and dropped slightly from 15th in 2022 to 18th in 2023 for health factors.
According to the rankings data, Lake County ranks better than Ohio county and national averages in the following categories: percentage of physical inactivity; access to exercise opportunities; teen births; flu vaccinations; high school completions; individuals who have attended college; children in poverty; income inequality; and air pollution.
Additionally, Lake County has seen improvement in the percentage of residents reporting poor or fair health from 17 percent in 2022 to 13 percent in 2023, and also in the average number of days each month with poor physical health, from 4 days in 2022 to 2.9 in 2023.
The county also had areas that will require additional examination, the report states.
While Lake County ranks high in the percentage of physical activity and access to exercise opportunities, it’s slightly higher than the national average, and averages in other Ohio counties, for adult obesity.
Lake County is also higher than the national average and averages in other Ohio counties in adult smoking and alcohol-impaired driving deaths.
The average number of social associations in Lake County is also slightly lower in comparison with the national average and other Ohio county averages, officials noted.
Despite the need for improvement in the detailed categories, Health Commissioner Ron Graham said the district is very pleased Lake County continues to be one of the healthiest counties in Ohio.
“One challenge with the rankings is that the criteria for health are often changed, which impacts the score and causes difficulty to compare the data from year to year,” he explained. “We are utilizing the most recently available data, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s social vulnerability index, which provides context to health factors and outcomes.”
Further rankings can be found at www.countyhealthrankings.org/.
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