In a national health report, Allen County rose a whopping 46 places when compared to other Kansas counties between 2018 and 2019.
The report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation ranks Kansas counties on various health issues, from things like physical activity to premature deaths. Those conditions fall into two categories: health outcomes and health factors.
Allen County ranked 38th out of 103 Kansas counties in health outcomes, which includes premature death, low birthweight, life expectancy, diabetes and HIV prevalence. Last year, the county was ranked 84th.
The health factors category also improved, but not as significantly. This year, Allen County was ranked 83rd, compared to 88th last year. Health factors include adult smoking, obesity, excessive drinking, teen births, food insecurity, lack of health insurance, poverty, unemployment, crime and access to health care providers.
Lisse Regehr, CEO at Thrive Allen County, said the report is a useful tool to gauge progress on efforts to improve the health of local residents. The report should be studied carefully to make comparisons, as a variety of factors can influence the data, such as whether the change is a result of actual improvements, lack of or fluctuations in data, or changes in other counties. The data typically lags a couple of years, which means this years report reflects situations that occurred a couple of years ago.
Still, the report is good at showing incremental changes over time, Regehr said. It shows the success of local efforts to build hiking and biking trails, recruit more physicians, increase opportunities for physical activity and improve access to fresh food through farmers markets, she said.
That all combines to create a better culture of health and better health outcomes, Regehr said. All this work weve been doing not just Thrive but people across the county its taken 10 years to move the needle.
For example, in 2013 Allen Countys rate of those without health insurance was 21 percent. Thrive introduced a Navigator program to help residents enroll in the Affordable Care Act, and in 2017 the uninsured rate dropped to 9 percent. It remains steady at 9 percent, which is lower than the state average of 10 percent.
Another category that historically shows poor performance is premature deaths. The report considers anyone who dies before age 75 as a premature death. The age of death is subtracted from 75 to calculate years of lost life. This year, that number was 7,300 still higher than the state average of 6,900 but significantly less than Allen Countys number last year at 9,300.
Regehr said one factor that contributes to a high rate of premature death is drug overdoses, particularly from opioid abuse. Thrive began to focus efforts on the opioid epidemic last year, but it likely will take several years before those efforts result in a significant reduction in overdose deaths.
We like to work on a whole person approach, like with obesity. We encourage people to get out on the trails. We want them to socialize so they have a desire to be more active and make healthier choices when they go to the grocery store, Regehr said. We look at a combination of factors and what we can do as a community to make us healthier in that area.
The rankings show Thrive and other local leaders what is working and what still needs to be addressed, she said.
Areas where Allen County has improved include reducing the number of low birthweight babies; increased physical activity and access to exercise opportunities; fewer alcohol-impaired driving deaths, sexually transmitted infections and teen births; less food insecurity; lower unemployment; fewer motor vehicle crash deaths and injury deaths; more physicians, dentists and mental health providers; and an increase in median household income.
Areas of concern include adult obesity; a very high rate of children in poverty (23 percent compared to the state average of 15 percent); and increased violent crime.
