Report names healthiest, least healthy Iowa counties

Delaware and Appanoose counties aren't far apart in size, but a new study ranks their populations on opposite ends of the health spectrum.

“I'm surprised that you said that,” said Dean Kaster, chairman of the Appanoose County Board of Supervisors, upon hearing that his county ranked least healthy in Iowa. “That's not what I see.”

Kaster, who lives in Moravia in the south-central county of 12,887 people, said he had not seen the County Health Rankings, a study by the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

According to the study, which was released today, March 30, 2011, residents of Appanoose County are more than two times more likely to die a premature death than those in Delaware County.

“I'm 76 years old and I get up and go to work every day,” Kaster said of his position on the supervisors board.

He noted that Appanoose County is home to Honey Creek Resort State Park on Lake Rathbun, with plenty of opportunities for fishing, boating, golf and other outdoor activities.

According to the rankings, the healthiest of Iowa's 99 counties are clustered in the northeast and scattered throughout the state; the least healthy counties are clustered in southern Iowa.

Delma Hardin, manager of Delaware County Public Health, won't take credit for Delaware being named the healthiest county in Iowa.

She does, however, point to public-private partnerships that stress health and immunization programs undertaken by the health department.

Even before Iowa's Clean Air Act, the schools had gone smokefree and parks in Manchester, the county seat, had also banned smoking, she said.

Still, the northeast Iowa county of 17,764 people has its challenges, Hardin said.

“We recognize, like every other county in our state that we have some issues with obesity,” she said.

And while Manchester is home to a 25-bed Regional Medical Center, Hardin said some lower-income residents have difficulty accessing a dentist in the county.

This is the second year of the report, which ranks the overall health of nearly every county in all 50 states by using a standard way to measure how healthy people are and how long they live.

According to this year's rankings, the 10 healthiest counties in Iowa, (starting with most healthy) are Delaware, Sioux, Story, Worth, Johnson, Lyon, Bremer, Winneshiek, Mitchell and Buena Vista.

Linn County ranked 35th healthiest, the same ranking as last year.

The 10 counties in the poorest health, starting with least healthy, are Appanoose, Van Buren, Wayne, Wapello, Mills, Harrison, Montgomery, Lee, Pottawattamie and Clarke.

Researchers used these measures to assess the overall health for Iowa by county: the rate of people dying before age 75, the percent 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-birthweight infants.

The rankings also looks at factors that affect people's health within these categories: health behavior, clinical care, social and economic factors, and physical environment.

Among health factors researchers examined were: rates of adult smoking, adult obesity, excessive drinking among adults, and teenage births; number of uninsured adults, availability of primary care providers, and preventable hospital stays; rates of high school graduation, adults who have attended college, children in poverty; and community safety; access to healthy foods and air pollution levels.

Dr. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, director of the Iowa Department of Public Health, said the rankings have some use in planning and educational purposes.

The issue isn't necessarily rural vs. urban, she noted.

Because part of the rankings are dependent on factors such as salary and unemployement rates, she said, it's not surprising that southern counties, which have suffered higher job losses, would be ranked lower.

Items of note included:

•         The rate of premature death in Appanoose County is more than twice that in Delaware County.

•         In Appanoose County, 24 percent of adults reported being in poor or fair health, compared to 9 percent in Delaware.

•         The rate of sexually transmitted infection in Appanoose County is more than twice that in Delaware.

•         Appanoose County has nearly twice the teen birth rate of Delaware.

•         In Appanoose County, 24 percent of children live in poverty, compared to 12 percent in Delaware.

To see where your county ranked, go to:

www.countyhealthrankings.org