State Health Rankings Released

Brainerd area counties are mid-packers when comes to state health rankings. Crow wing County ranked 53rd out of 85; Morrison County, 80th; Cass, 81st, Mille Lacs, 57th. Aitkin county was the highest in the area at 25th. Jackson County finished number one, Beltrami County last.

The report prepared by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, is the first report to rank the overall health of counties by using a standard formula to measure how healthy people are and how long they live.

Counties were ranked in two categories: health outcomes and health factors. Health outcomes include the rate of people dying before age 75, the percentage of people who report being in fair or poor health, and the rate of low-birth weight infants. Health factors include health behavior, clinical care, social and economic factors and physical environment. The rankings are designed to compare the health of counties within each state; they will not compare counties in one state with counties in another state.