Frederica Freyberg:
Now more health news. Another new study takes a county-by-county look at the overall health of our state. The UW Population Health Institute ranked all 72 Wisconsin counties from most to least healthy. Here’s what they found. Ozaukee is the most healthy followed by St. Croix, Washington, Waukesha, Portage, Calumet and Outagamie and Buffalo. And Taylor and Dane counties round out the top 10. Julie Willems Van Dijk is with the Health Institute and worked on the survey. Thanks for being here.

Julie Willems Van Dijk:
Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:
We talked about the top 10 and the number one. What people want to know, of course, then is what the least healthy county is in Wisconsin.

Julie Willems Van Dijk:
The least healthy is Menominee County in the north central part of the state. And the second least healthy county is Milwaukee County.

Frederica Freyberg:
Health wise, what is the difference between the most healthy, that being Ozaukee, and the least healthy, Menominee?

Julie Willems Van Dijk:
We look at factors related to people dying too early and quality of life while they’re living. What we found is that the premature death rate in those unhealthy counties is much higher than the premature death rate in Ozaukee County. We believe this is the result of a number of health factors. We do a second set of rankings that look at factors that lead to premature death and chronic disease. Those include health behaviors, socioeconomic factors, the physical environment and access and quality to clinical care.

Frederica Freyberg:
And did you find subsets of counties across the state that were by and large more healthy than others? Like where cities, were people in cities more likely to be healthy except for Milwaukee?

Julie Willems Van Dijk:
Yes. The healthier places tend to be suburban areas and smaller cities. Suburban areas of the Minneapolis area over on the western side of the state. Suburban areas of Milwaukee and Dane County as well.

Frederica Freyberg:
What is the motivation behind putting out these rankings?

Julie Willems Van Dijk:
This is an important report to help bring attention to the many, many different factors that influence health. Many times people think about health as primarily in the hands of your doctor. But really, while medical care is very important, the other issues like how wealthy people are, how well educated people are, what their health behaviors are, what kind of physical environment they live in, how socially connected they are in their communities all have a very important impact on health. So we want to raise awareness and bring many, many partners to the table to talk about how to improve health.

Frederica Freyberg:
In fact, the rankings have proved motivational for some counties that didn't do so well.

Julie Van Dijk:
Absolutely, a couple of years ago, Juneau County was the lowest ranking county in the state. They didn't like that very much, so a variety of leaders in that community including elected officials, physicians, education leaders, public health leaders, came together and have worked on a plan to enhance health programs and policies in Juneau County.

Frederica Freyberg:
That's exactly what you wanted, I'm sure. But this year the survey went nationwide. What's been the reaction to that?

Julie Van Dijk:
We published county health rankings in all 50 states. It has been outstanding. The media has covered this extensively. We've had over 900 stories throughout the nation. We worked closely with state and local health departments and we're hoping for the same kind of action that we saw in Juneau County throughout the nation.

Frederica Freyberg:
Julie, thank you.