Tompkins County and Chemung County are the healthiest and unhealthiest counties, respectively, in Central New York, according to a recent national report. Tompkins County is also one of the healthiest counties statewide, ranking second out of the 62 New York counties, according to the fifth edition of “County Health Rankings.” It’s a report compiled by […]
Tompkins County and Chemung County are the healthiest and unhealthiest counties, respectively, in Central New York, according to a recent national report.
Tompkins County is also one of the healthiest counties statewide, ranking second out of the 62 New York counties, according to the fifth edition of “County Health Rankings.” It’s a report compiled by researchers at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute.
Of the other 15 Central New York counties, Tioga and Madison also place among the healthiest.
Tompkins’ Southern Tier counterpart, Chemung County, is among the unhealthiest counties in the state, ranking at number 60 out of 62 New York counties. Most of the remaining Central New York counties fall in the middle of the health rankings among Empire State counties.
The report compares the health of counties within a state based on 29 factors, including smoking, unemployment, access to healthy foods, and physical inactivity. This year’s report also features six new measurements — housing, transportation, food environment, mental health, injury-related deaths, and exercise opportunities.
The counties then receive two rankings based on a weighted summary of the measurements, health outcomes and health factors. “Health outcomes represent how healthy a county is while health factors represent what influences the health of the county,” the report says.
Jefferson County, the fastest growing county in New York state, ranks 31 for health outcomes, but comes in lower for health factors, ranking No. 52. Fellow North Country county, St. Lawrence, is among the unhealthy counties, as it ranks number 55 for health outcomes and number 56 for health factors.
Livingston County in Western New York and downstate Nassau County rank first in health outcomes and health factors, respectively. Bronx County, also downstate, is the unhealthiest county in the state based on the rankings. It comes in last (No. 62) for both health outcomes and factors.
As a whole, New York state is the 15th healthiest state in the nation, as determined by a different report, “America’s Health Ranking,” a long running annual assessment of the nation’s health on a state-by-state basis.
Contact Collins at ncollins@cnybj.com