Kane County Ranks 5th Healthiest Among 102 Illinois Counties
Kane County ranks as the fifth healthiest in Illinois in overall health outcomes — a significant jump up in the ranking of 102 Illinois counties.
The ranking was reported in the sixth annual County Health Rankings, released Tuesday by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute. The rankings are available at www.countyhealthrankings.org.
“The County Health Rankings show us that where we live matters to our health. Even if we rank relatively high overall, we know that we can take steps to improve the health of all our residents,” said Barbara Jeffers, executive director of the Kane County Health Department. “All of us want Kane County to be a healthier place.”
The rankings help to identify factors that are making residents unhealthy and to understand how Kane compares to other counties in the state. With this knowledge, steps can be taken to improve the health of Kane County residents.
“The County Health Rankings demonstrate that Kane is one of the healthiest counties in the state, but we can also see that there remains much work to be done to get where we want to be,” Jeffers said.
Historically, Kane was ranked ninth in 2014, 12th in 2013, eighth in 2012, 9th in 2011 and 11th in 2010, out of Illinois’ 102 counties.
The top four healthiest counties in terms of health outcomes were Woodford, Kendall, DuPage and Clinton. The overall rankings in health outcomes represent how healthy counties are within the state. The ranks are based on two types of measures: how long people live and how healthy people feel while alive.
Kane County ranks fourth in length of life and 27th in quality of life. Measures include premature death rates and the percentages of people in poor or fair health, poor physical and mental health days and low birth weight.
Kane County ranks 29th in the state in overall health factors, which are based on four types of measures: health behaviors, clinical care, social and economic and physical environment. More good news is that the county ranks fourth in the state in the category of health behaviors, which includes factors such as adult smoking, adult obesity, food environment, physical inactivity, access to exercise, excessive drinking, alcohol-impaired driving accidents, sexually transmitted infections and teen births.
Kane County is near the bottom of the list — ranked 93rd — in physical environment. Factors that hurt Kane’s ranking in that health category include driving alone to work (81 percent) and long commute – driving alone (41 percent.)
“The County Health Rankings have helped galvanize communities across the nation to improve health,” said Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, MD, RWJF president and CEO. “Solutions and innovation are coming from places as diverse as rural Williamson, West Virginia in the heart of Appalachia to urban New Orleans; they are engaging business, public health, education, parents, and young people to build a Culture of Health.”
Nationally, this year’s rankings show that the healthiest counties in each state have higher college attendance, fewer preventable hospital stays, and better access to parks and gyms. The least healthy counties in each state have more smokers, more teen births, and more alcohol related car crash deaths. This report also looks at distribution in income and the links between income levels and health.
The rankings also revealed the following national trends:
- Premature death rates are dropping, with 60 percent of the nation’s counties seeing declines. But for many counties these rates are not improving — 40 percent of counties are not making progress in reducing premature death.
- One out of four children in the U.S. lives in poverty. Child poverty rates are more than twice as high in the unhealthiest counties in each state than in the healthiest counties. Violent crime rates are highest in the South. Violent crime rates, which affect health, well-being, and stress levels, are highest in the Southwest, Southeast, and Mississippi Delta Regions.
- Having a job influences health. Unemployment rates are 1.5 times higher in the least healthy counties in each state as they are in the healthiest counties. During the recession, counties in the West, Southeast, and rust belt region of the U.S. were hit hardest by growing unemployment. Many, but not at all, of these counties have seen their unemployment rates drop since the recession ended in 2010.
“In the six years since the County Health Rankings began, we’ve seen them serve as a rallying point for change,” said Bridget Catlin, PhD, MHSA, co-director of the County Health Rankings & Roadmaps. “Communities are using the rankings to inform their priorities as they work to build a Culture of Health.”
The County Health Rankings & Roadmaps program offers data, tools, and resources to help communities throughout their journey to build a Culture of Health. Please find the official website for the County Health Rankings by clicking here.
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