Franklin County ranks 40th in Florida in recent health rankings

Franklin County ranks 40^th out of Florida’s 67 counties for the overall health of its residents.

The ranking is part of a study done by the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

The group looked at more than 3,000 counties and the District of Columbia to assess the overall health of nearly every county in all 50 states, using a standard way to measure how healthy people are and how long they live.

The Rankings consider factors that affect people’s health within four categories: health behavior, clinical care, social and economic factors, and physical environment.

Franklin County was weakest when looking at Health behaviors like exercise, smoking, teen pregnancies and preventable hospital stays where we ranked 59^th.

But when you look at where we live where they consider air pollution, access to outdoor activities, access to healthy foods, and limited access to fast food, Franklin county was 3^rd in the state.

We ranked 48^th for social factors like education, unemployment and violent crime, and 49^th for clinical care which takes into account access to health care and the number of uninsured residents.

We weren’t too far off from our neighboring counties in the rankings.

Liberty County ranked 38 out of Florida’s 67 counties, Gulf County was 36 and Wakulla 22.

Leon County ranked 7^th in the state.

The purpose of the study, which is now in its third year, is to give political leaders and medical professionals a benchmark to work from when considering ways to make residents overall health better.

You can see Franklin County’s numbers and compare them to any other county in the state by going on-line to www.countyhealthrankings.org

http://www.oysterradio.com e-mail manager@oysterradio.com with comments