NH DHHS - Annual Rankings Show Where State Counties Do Well and Opportunities for Improvement
Thursday, March 21, 2013 at 07:24AM Concord, NH – Rockingham County is now the healthiest county in New
Hampshire, displacing Merrimack County as last year’s healthiest, according
to the third annual County Health Rankings, released today by the Robert
Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and the University of Wisconsin Population
Health Institute (UWPHI). Grafton County has taken second after Rockingham
this year. According to the Rankings, residents of Coos County have almost
twice the rate of premature deaths and three times the rate of children
living in poverty as residents of Rockingham County.
The Rankings, available at www.countyhealthrankings.org, include a snapshot
of each county in New Hampshire 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 New Hampshire by
county: the rate of people dying before age 75, the percentage 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 birth weight infants.
The Rankings also consider 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 look at: rates
of adult smoking, adult obesity, excessive drinking among adults, and
teenage births; the number of uninsured under age 65, availability of
primary care physicians, and preventable hospital stays; rates of high
school graduation, adults who have attended some college, children in
poverty; community safety; limited access to healthy foods; rates of
physical inactivity; and air pollution levels.
The County Health Rankings rank the overall health of nearly every county
in all 50 states. They Rankings allow counties to see how they compare to
other counties within each State based on a range of factors that influence
health including high school graduation rates, obesity, smoking, and family
and social support. This year’s Rankings include new measures, such as how
many dentists are in a community per resident.
“This report unfortunately confirms that the health of the residents of
Coos and Sullivan Counties lags behind the rest of the State,” said New
Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Public Health
Director Dr. José Montero. “There is room for improvement in Strafford,
Belknap, and Carroll Counties as well. We plan to use this and other data
we have collected to work toward change in these markers of health for all
the citizens of New Hampshire.”
This report is complementary to the New Hampshire State Health Profile the
Division of Public Health Services released two years ago. Last year DPHS
also released the 2011 Snapshot of New Hampshire’s Public Health Regions,
Counties, and the Cities of Manchester and Nashua. This snapshot, a
companion document to the 2011 New Hampshire State Health Profile, is meant
to assist community leaders and to identify priority health issues in their
communities. The 2011 Snapshot also confirms that Coos County fares worse
than the State in areas such as obesity, binge drinking, teen birth rates,
and access to primary care providers.
To view the entire 2011 New Hampshire State Profile, go to
www.dhhs.nh.gov/dphs/documents/2011statehealthprofile.pdf . The Snapshot
Report is available online at www.dhhs.nh.gov/dphs/index.htm#regprof . For
more information about the Division of Public Health Services visit the
DHHS website at www.dhhs.nh.gov .
Constituent Service, Counties, NH DHHS, Reports