Healthy living? Apparently not in Greene
Greene County ranks near the bottom in an annual tally measuring the health outcomes of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties.
“Greene and Fayette counties always fall near the bottom in these studies,” said Robert MtJoy, chief executive officer of Cornerstone Care, which reinforces, he said, the long-held notion there is a strong correlation between poverty and health.
“Wealth is a powerful health indicator,” he said.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Chester County, which was deemed the healthiest county in the Keystone State, is one of the well-heeled Main Line suburbs of Philadelphia. “That’s an axiom of public health,” said Lee Rutledge-Falcione, the executive director of the nonprofit Washington County Health Partners.
This latest round of national county health rankings, compiled by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, places Greene at No. 65 of the commonwealth’s 67 counties, with only Fayette and Philadelphia counties faring worse. Last year, Greene landed at No. 66 on the list. Greene did poorly because of high rates of poverty, obesity, single-parent homes and sedentary lifestyles.
Washington County was close to dead-center at No. 38, even though it slid down seven notches from the survey in 2012, when it was at No. 31.
Rutledge-Falcione cautioned that the difference between this year and last might be statistically insignificant, but it does represent a downward trend – Washington has gone from No. 29 to No. 28, then to No. 31 and now No. 38.
The rankings are age-adjusted, so they aren’t necessarily a reflection of the region’s greying population. Rather, they’re determined by such factors as prevalence of smoking and obesity, recreational opportunities, and if communities are amenable to walkers and bikers. The number of fast-food outlets, air quality and violent crime are also part of the equation.
To coincide with the county health rankings, Washington County Health Partners has released its own score of 45.9 percent. If it were a letter grade, it would probably be about a C. Rutledge-Falcione believes her organization’s score, which is based on the Healthy People 2020 benchmarks established by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, offers a more detailed picture of the county’s overall health.
She pointed out that while Washington County fares well when it comes to infant mortality, it has relatively high rates of people dying before the age of 75 and high lung-cancer rates.
MtJoy said providing access to health care “is the “big one for us. We are finding success with rural health care, especially now in dental care,” he said.
And, MtJoy said, it should come as no surprise that today’s society is a sedentary one, and while there may be those who will argue schools are not doing enough when it comes to providing better food choices and more exercise, MtJoy said it is not their place; it is the family, the parents who should be responsible, he said.
In the Pittsburgh region, Butler County remained the healthiest in the county health rankings, coming in again this year at No. 10. Westmoreland followed at No. 23 and Armstrong at No. 33. Beaver and Allegheny are behind Washington, at Nos. 44 and 46, respectively.