New County Health Rankings are Released!

The 2013 County Health Rankings are out!

Now in our fourth year, the Rankings show that how long and how well people live depends on multiple factors including rates of smoking, education, and access to healthy food. They also help to lay the groundwork for governors, mayors, business leaders, and citizens across the country to take action to improve health. Some national trends this year show:

• Child poverty rates have not improved since 2000, with more than one in five children living in poverty.
• Violent crime has decreased by almost 50 percent over the past two decades.
• The counties where people don’t live as long and don’t feel as well have the highest rates of smoking, teen births, and physical inactivity, as well as more preventable hospital stays.
• Teen birth rates are more than twice as high in the least healthy counties than in the healthiest counties.

This year the Rankings are easier to use than ever with interactive maps and new county-level trend graphs detailing changes over time for several measures, including premature death, children in poverty, and unemployment.

To learn more about the 2013 Rankings, join a Twitter Q&A at 2 p.m. ET today with Dr. Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, RWJF president and CEO and Patrick Remington, Associate Dean for Public Health at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.

Submit your questions to @RWJF_PubHealth or @CHRankings or follow the conversation at #healthrankings.