Rockingham most healthy, Coos least

According to a new report, Rockingham is the healthiest county in New Hampshire, while Coos is the least healthy.

The report was a collaboration between the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin.

In order from healthiest to least healthy, New Hampshire’s counties ranked as follows: Rockingham, Merrimack, Grafton, Carroll, Hillsborough, Belknap, Cheshire, Strafford, Sullivan, and Coos.

The evaluation included health outcomes – such as the rate of preventable hospital stays – as well as health factors.  Health factors are community characteristics that have been shown to correlate with health outcomes.  For example, studies have shown that children in single parent households are at greater risk for illness.

However, health factors are not a guarantee of health outcomes.  As an example, Sullivan county in New Hampshire had the lowest unemployment rate - a factor typically associated with better health outcomes - but still scored second to last in overall health.  By including health factors in its evaluation, critics may argue the report is defining a county’s “health” too broadly.

Despite ranking near the top for most of the thirty-five metrics included in the report, Rockingham did score relatively poorly on preventable hospital stays and alcohol-impaired driving deaths.

On the other end of the spectrum, Coos had the lowest rate of alcohol-impaired driving deaths and the second lowest rate of violent crime, contrary to its overall poor health ranking.

There were some other notable outliers in the county rankings. 

While Belknap generally ranked in the middle for most health factors, the county had the highest percentage of obese adults, at 31%.  Carroll county had the lowest obesity rate, at 23%.

Hillsborough had the highest violent crime rate, an unsurprising statistic given that the county is home to two large cities, Nashua and Manchester.

Do you agree with your county’s health ranking?  Let us know in the comments.