County Health Ranking The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Institute for Population and Health announced Wednesday.

The ranking looks at over 90 factors that affect health, including education, housing, employment, transportation and access to healthcare.

Pima County slipped from 6th place in 2022 to 2023 behind Maricopa, Pinal, Santa Cruz, Yuma, Yavapai and Greenlee counties.

Pima County’s overall ranking factors include obesity, smoking, and sexually transmitted disease rates. “Serious housing problems” such as overcrowding, high costs and lack of kitchen and plumbing facilities also contributed to the score.

In Pima County, other risk factors that reduce the health of residents include:

• 18% of residents experience at least one type of serious housing problem compared to 17% in the state and in the US.
• 20% of children live in poverty compared to 18% in Arizona and 17% in the US.
• Spending per student in the district, on average, was $1,712 less than the estimated amount needed to help students achieve average US test scores.

Data shows Pima County ranked fourth in statewide health from 2018-2020, dropping to sixth in 2021.

“There are many factors that contribute to Arizona County’s health rankings, but to summarize them all, social connectivity, income inequality, access to quality education, and affordable housing—the social determinants of health. It comes down to factors,” said Will Humble. The Executive Director of the Arizona Public Health Association said in a news release: “The Department of Health can influence some of them, but the big policy levers rest on state legislatures and other elected officials, and we use these data to make policy decisions. I am asking you to let me know.”

The report suggests several priorities for Pima County.

For the first time, this year’s rankings measured civic infrastructure and county participation, including park access, school funding adequacy, broadband, voter turnout, and self-reported census participation.

final presentation Counties with better public infrastructure said they had higher high school graduation rates, higher household incomes, lower income inequality, and lower rates of poor children and uninsured adults. People also tend to live longer in these communities.

“Our findings reveal that people and places thrive when all residents have the opportunity to participate in their communities,” said Principal Investigator, County Health Rankings and Roadmaps, Wisconsin. Sheri Johnson, director of the University’s Institute of Population and Health, said in a news release.

Daniel Dirksen, Ph.D., Vice President for Health Equity and Outreach at the University of Arizona, said Arizona’s top-ranked counties were among his is what you would expect.

Social determinants of health are the conditions in which people are born, live and age, and influence a wide range of health, functioning and quality of life outcomes and risks.

The CDC has grouped these determinants into five areas. Access and quality of education. Access and quality of health care.neighborhood and built environment; and social and community context

Very rural areas, where populations tend to be older, chronically ill and have lower incomes, have some of the biggest challenges to overcome, says Derksen.

“By addressing underlying health determinants, we can improve outcomes and reduce the disparities we saw in Arizona,” said Derksen. “But we haven’t made much progress in some areas.”

With low incomes and a lack of easy access to clean water, reliable transportation, and medical services, Navajo and Apache counties found themselves at the bottom of the state rankings.

The CDC also reports declining life expectancy for some populations, including Native American and Hispanic populations, which also contributes to the county’s health rankings.

Derksen said the shortage of health workers, while a concern in itself, disproportionately affects rural areas and underserved communities that struggle to recruit and retain health workers. I said there is.

“Arizona’s population is growing so rapidly across the county that we need the ability to keep up with the training of adequate medical professionals, and we need it in areas where it is most needed: rural and well-equipped. We need to prepare them to practice in underserved communities,” said Derksen. “Pima is a larger city around the Tucson area, and it has a very rural element to it. It is rural and has county subdivisions that tend to have challenges accessing care.”

Derksen said he believes the report is valuable in that it provides action items and things counties and governments can do to improve outcomes.

“It’s not just the data that shows how bad things are,” he said. “We also have a strategy on what communities can do to improve health outcomes. This is an important public safety message. There are specific things we can do to improve health outcomes.” .”

The rankings suggest different ways to build public health. This includes investing in libraries, community centers, and other public spaces to foster human connection. Expand civic knowledge and skills through youth leadership programs and implement voter registration and turnout initiatives to expand representation in the democratic process.

This study looks at areas where Pima County has strengths. This includes ranking him second in the state in terms of health factors (things people can change to improve the longevity and quality of life of its residents). Other strengths include Pima County’s ranking among the top four counties in the state, as well as clinical care and health behaviors.

Pima County has seen year-on-year improvements in many areas, including teenage births, high school and college completion, access to primary care and mental health providers, preventable hospitalizations, and mammography screenings.