Saturday, March 23, 2019 4:00 AM
A national health survey, which uses more than thirty health evaluations to help communities assess the well-being of their residents, has released its 2019 annual rankings of the state’s healthiest counties.
Montgomery County ranks thirty-third (33) out of 92 Indiana counties, a drop of six slots since the survey was published in 2018.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation conducts the annual survey, and measures health data in four broad categories to compare counties –– Health Behavior, such as tobacco use, diet and exercise; access to Clinical Care; Social and Economic Factors, including employment and income rates; and Physical Environment.
“The health survey is a really good tool,” said Administrator Amber Reed of the Montgomery County Health Department. “We refer to the ratings quite often. It helps us identify areas where we’ve made significant improvements, and is great for signaling trends that we may need to address.”
Montgomery County ranked at or above the state average in most categories, plus has shown significant improvements in the areas of obesity and drunk driving deaths in recent years.
“We are seeing improvements in many areas. What’s nice about the survey is that they explain the data source for the rankings. It’s not just last year’s data. Sometimes they sample data that covers several years. Some things we focus on have delayed outcomes. These are not necessarily changes that we see in just a year’s time.