New Health Rankings Reveal Strengths, Gaps In California Counties

CALIFORNIA — Marin is California's healthiest county and Trinity is the least healthy 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.

A ranking of all 58 California counties is listed below.

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.

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.

Health rankings for all 58 California counties:

1. Marin

2. San Mateo

3. Placer

4. Santa Clara

5. Napa

6. Orange

7. San Francisco

8. Sonoma

9. Santa Cruz

10. Yolo

11. El Dorado

12. Ventura

13. San Diego

14. Alameda

15. Contra Costa

16. San Luis Obispo

17. Nevada

18. Santa Barbara

19. Mono

20. Monterey

21. San Benito

22. Los Angeles

23. Solano

24 Amador

25. Riverside

26. Sacramento

27. Imperial

28. Calaveras

29. Colusa

30. Mariposa

31. Tuolumne

32. Alpine

33. Kings

34. Stanislaus

35. Butte

36. Madera

37. Sutter

38. Merced

39. San Joaquin

40. Sierra

41. Mendocino

42. Inyo

43. San Bernardino

44. Glenn

45. Humboldt

46. Fresno

47. Tulare

48. Lassen

49. Shasta

50. Del Norte

51. Tehama

52. Yuba

53. Kern

54. Plumas

55. Modoc

56 Siskiyou

57. Lake

58. Trinity

Source: County Health Rankings and Roadmaps

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.