Michigan health rankings released : News : UpperMichigansSource.com

Michigan health rankings released

Posted: 03.31.2011 at 12:01 PM

Results bring good news for some counties and bad news for others.

MARQUETTE -- How healthy is the Upper Peninsula?

A new health report just released helps us answer that question, and the results bring good news for some U.P. counties and bad news for others.

Where you live affects your health, that's the message of a new health report released by the Robert Wood Johnson Institute and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute.

"It's not merely the absence of disease, rather it's the complete sense of physical, mental, and social well-being. That's what these measures are looking at, trying to look at the multi-faceted perspective of health," says Dr. Kevin Piggott of the Marquette Health Department.

For overall health, which looks at length and quality of life, Alger County was ranked the highest in the Upper Peninsula, while Ontonagon County was ranked lowest.

For clinical care, Marquette County was ranked first in the entire state, Ontonagon County was ranked last in the state. This particular ranking looks at the number of primary care physicians per community.

For healthy behaviors, which includes things like smoking and drinking habits, Houghton holds 6th place in the state, while Chippewa County ranks 81st.

"The ranking is used as a barometer of where we need to go and I wouldn't get too focused on the numbers," says Dr. Piggott.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

A county-by-county health report for the entire U.S. was released on Thursday, and the results are good and bad for the U.P.

Alger County finished the highest of all U.P. counties in the Health Outcomes category. This includes two factors: quality of life and length of life. The worst county was Ontonagon, which finished 79 out of 82.

We've listed the position of all U.P. county rankings for Health Outcomes below. You can also view the entire report for Michigan and other states here. There are many different categories covered by the report, and if you have any questions about what each category entails, click here to see a full breakdown.