Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Rankings in the bottom half are good, right?

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has sponsored a study of people's health in the United States by county. Jason Sadowski at Slate discusses how these maps show the variation of life expectancy by socioeconomic status here. It is an interesting read.

As someone who grew up in a middle class or possibly upper middle class home, I wondered if the various counties I have lived in had good health scores.  Turns out they do not. The county I grew up in Iowa ranked 77th out of 99 counties. The county in Kansas that I called home as a middle school student ranks 70th out of 105 counties (although 3 counties weren't rated). I lived in two counties when I lived in Wisconsin. Those counties, Winnebago and Milwaukee, ranked 37th and 71st out of Wisconsin's 72 counties. Finally, my home county in Minnesota ranks 55th out of Minnesota's 87 counties.  To sum it up, I have only lived in one county that was even close to the top half of all counties in the state.

Despite these poor showings by my various home counties, I fully intend to fulfill my solemn oath to see the Tricentennial.

2 comments:

  1. What is that huge bony growth on your forehead? See a doctor, Torkik!

    ReplyDelete

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