Loudoun Third Healthiest County in Virginia

Loudoun County ranked third in Virginia in terms of the healthiest counties, according to the 2012 County Health Rankings, which offers health information for more than 3,000 counties in the country.

The rankings focused on comparisons within states, not across states. Loudoun’s third-place finish fell behind Fairfax and Arlington counties.

Here are the top ten municipalities in Virginia:

1. Fairfax
2. Arlington
3. Loudoun
4. Albemarle
5. York
6. Alexandria City
7. James City
8. Clarke
9. Powhatan
10. Mathews

The rankings, now in their third year, aim to highlight the importance of critical factors in health such as education rates, income levels and access to healthy foods, as well as access to medical care, in influencing how long and how well people live.

Published online at www.countyhealthrankings.org by the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), the rankings consider factors that affect people’s health within four categories: health behavior, clinical care, social and economic factors, and physical environment.

“The County Health Rankings show us that much of what influences our health happens outside of the doctor’s office. In fact, where we live, learn, work and play has a big role in determining how healthy we are and how long we live,” said Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, M.D., M.B.A., president and CEO of RWJF. “The good news is that businesses, health care providers, government, consumers and community leaders are already joining forces in communities across the nation to change some of the gaps that the Rankings highlight.”

Within each state, even the healthiest counties have areas where they can improve and are no more likely than unhealthy counties to have lower rates of excessive drinking or obesity or better access to healthy food options.

Some factors reflect regional patterns, according to the rankings publishers:

• Excessive drinking rates are highest in the northern states
• Rates of teen births, sexually transmitted infections, and children in poverty are highest across the southern states
• Unemployment rates are lowest in the northeastern, Midwest, and central plains states
• Motor vehicle crash deaths are lowest in the northeastern and upper Midwest states

The Rankings are based on the latest publicly-available data for each county and are unique local tools that every county can use to measure where its residents stand on multiple factors that influence health compared to other counties in their state.  

“After three years, we’ve learned that people across the entire nation want to know how the health of their county compares to others in their state. This annual check-up helps bring county leaders together to see where they need to improve,” said Patrick Remington, M.D., M.P.H., professor and associate dean at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.

To learn what other communities are doing to improve the health of their residents and how your county can develop plans to address health challenges, visit http://www.countyhealthrankings.org/roadmaps.  

Today also marks the release of the call for applications for the Roadmaps to Health Prize, another component of the County Health Roadmaps project that recognizes and honors the efforts and accomplishments of communities in the U.S. working at the forefront of better health for all residents. Up to six Roadmaps to Health Prize winning communities will be honored in early 2013 and each will receive a no-strings-attached $25,000 cash prize. Find out more and apply at www.countyhealthroadmaps.org/prize. 

To further illustrate the connection between social factors and health, RWJF along with the Virginia Commonwealth University’s Center on Human Needs this week unveiled a new County Health Calculator (www.countyhealthcalculator.org), an interactive online app that shows people how much education and income influence rates of diabetes and spending on diabetes care county-by-county.