Where you live can determine how long you live. The latest County Health Rankings reveal which places have the best and worst outcomes--like premature death--and rank the health factors that lead to those outcomes.
Conversations about health tend to revolve around national statistics. People talk about the childhood obesity rate, the smoking rate, the diabetes rate, and so on. This is fine, but national numbers tend to minimize local differences, which can be quite dramatic. For example, the least healthy counties have twice the premature death rate--measured by years lost before the age of 75--as the healthiest counties, according to a new ranking. If you just cite the overall rate, you miss what's happening in, say, Menominee County, Wisconsin.
Image: http://www.fastcoexist.com
