New Health Rankings Reveal Strengths, Gaps In San Diego County

SAN DIEGO COUNTY, CA — San Diego County is considered among the healthiest counties in California, according to this year’s recently released County Health Rankings and Roadmaps.

Published annually for the last decade, County Health Rankings is a program led by the University of Wisconsin's Population Health Institute. The goal of the rankings is to help communities better address disparities in health care access.

The rankings look at a variety of measures that affect a community's health, including high school graduation rates and access to healthy foods. Rates for smoking, obesity and teen births are also incorporated.

In addition to assigning each county a number ranking, this year’s rankings also compare each county to other counties in a state before placing it in one of four tiers, or quartiles, ranging from most to least healthy.

Overall, San Diego County was ranked 13th among all 58 counties in California.

In health outcomes, the county ranked among the healthiest counties in the state. In health factors, the county was ranked in the higher middle range of counties.

The 2021 County Health Rankings do not reflect coronavirus cases or deaths, according to researchers, who released this year’s findings mainly to provide a glimpse at what influenced a community’s health long before the COVID-19 pandemic.

“These gaps in opportunity have to be addressed if we want a fair, inclusive, and equitable recovery from the pandemic,” the organization wrote on its website.

The organization said it anticipates coronavirus data will be reflected in the 2022 rankings.

It also noted that counties that went into the pandemic with fewer opportunities to better resident health will exit it with “an even greater burden.”

“This crisis has only deepened the avoidable and unfair gaps that Black, Latino, Indigenous, and some Asian-American communities faced pre-COVID-19 in jobs with fair pay, housing, education, and more,” the organization said on its website.

Here’s a look at the measures used to calculate our county’s overall ranking:

Health Outcomes

• Premature death
• Adults reporting fair or poor health
• Physically unhealthy days reported in the past 30 days
• Mentally unhealthy days reported in the past 30 days
• Live births with low birth weight

Health Factors - Health Behaviors

• Adult smokers
• Adult obesity
• Healthy Food Environment Index
• Physical inactivity
• Residents with access to exercise opportunities
• Excessive drinking
• Driving deaths attributed to alcohol impairment
• Sexually transmitted infections
• Teen births

Health Factors - Clinical

• Uninsured residents
• Primary care physicians
• Dentists
• Mental health providers
• Preventable hospital stays
• Mammography screenings
• Flu vaccinations

Health Factors - Social And Economic

• High school completion
• College education
• Unemployment
• Children in poverty
• Income inequality
• Children in single-parent households
• Social associations
• Violent crime
• Injury deaths

County Health Rankings used data from a variety of sources to compile this year’s rankings. To see a list of data sources, read California’s full report.

See this year’s health snapshot and numbers for San Diego County.