Benton County still state's healthiest; Washington County third

Benton County remains the state's healthiest, and its residents earned the top mark for healthy behaviors.

The adult smoking rate, high number of alcohol-impaired driving deaths and above average rate of sexually transmitted infections pushed Washington County's health behavior ranking from third to 18th.

The rankings are part of the seventh annual County Health Rankings & Roadmaps released by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin's Population Health Institute. The report ranks counties within each state in two categories: health outcomes and health factors. Outcomes are based on length and quality of life. Factors include a number of areas like behaviors, clinical care, social and economic conditions and physical environment.

Benton County's top ranking for Arkansas spanned both categories. It's held the top outcomes ranking in each of the report's seven years. Washington County dropped one spot in each section compared to last year: from second to third in outcomes and from fourth to fifth in factors.

The healthiest counties are concentrated in the northwest and central part of the state while those with the lowest ranking are in the Delta and the southern one-third of the state. Phillips County had the state's lowest ranking, coming in 75th in both categories. It has finished at the bottom in five of the seven reports.

"I think the most meaningful thing to take away from these rankings is the patterns we see over time," said Dr. Namvar Zohoori, Arkansas Department of Health deputy chief science officer.

He said many rural communities have suffered from poor conditions for a long time, and change does not happen quickly.

"That doesn't mean we aren't doing anything to improve those conditions," Zohoori said. He noted Gov. Asa Hutchinson's October rollout of Healthy Active Arkansas. The program contains nine focus areas designed to improve health through diet and physical activity.

Jan O'Neill, associate researcher at the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, said the report is designed to help individuals and communities turn data into action.

"The report shows where we live is important to our health, that health is more than just seeing a doctor," she said. "It's about access to healthy foods, good-paying jobs and transportation and then using that information to make changes."

Zach Brown will use the fact that Washington County's sexually transmitted infection rate of 534 for every 100,000 residents is more than twice the rate than Benton County's and slightly higher that the state average. He is the assistant director of communications for the Pat Walker Health Center at the University of Arkansas.

The report's sexually transmitted infection ranking is based on the number of new chlamydia cases reported, a disease Brown said is increasing on both national and local levels. There were 1.4 million reported chlamydia cases in 2014, up nearly 3 percent, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"We do see an increase in the number of students coming in for testing after spring break," Brown said. "We do testing here and will be doing even more outreach."

Loy Bailey, administrator of the Benton County Health Department, said the reports shine a light on areas needing improvement and successful programs. He said high-ranking counties need to continually improve because of the state's overall poor health levels. United Health Foundation's annual health rankings had Arkansas at 48th in the nation last year.

"Even if you have a good ranking, you need to see how you compare to the upper percentile in the nation," he said. "This is a snapshot in time that can be used to gauge our progress."

Benton and Washington counties lag the nation and rank ninth and 13th within the state in clinical care. The country's top performing 10 percent of counties had a primary care physician to patient ratio of 1,040 to 1. Benton County was 1,760 to 1 and Washington County was 1,250 to 1. That's an improvement over two years ago when there was one primary care physician for every 1,842 people in Benton and one for every 1,398 in Washington counties.

"Any county can improve," O'Neill said.

NW News on 03/16/2016