How healthy is Sedgwick County compared to the rest of Kansas?

Sedgwick County has high rates for clinical care, but poverty, drug use and smoking drag it down to the middle of the pack for overall health, according to new rankings that show the healthiest and least healthy counties in Kansas.

“If you have a community that’s still struggling with issues like drugs, crime, poverty among children, that’s not a community that can easily become healthy, no matter how good the health care is in the community,” said Gianfranco Pezzino, senior fellow at the Kansas Health Institute.

The eighth annual County Health Rankings were released Wednesday by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute. They are available at www.countyhealthrankings.org.

Johnson County led as healthiest in Kansas, followed by Wabaunsee, Pottawomie, Logan and Riley counties. The counties in the poorest health, starting with the least healthy, are Labette, Wyandotte, Republic, Osborne and Wilson.

Health factors that hurt Sedgwick County’s ranking included the number of sexually transmitted diseases, violent crimes, adult smokers and people who are unemployed.

Commonalities between the least healthy counties include poverty and unemployment, Pezzino said.

While Sedgwick County isn’t a poor community, it does have high inequality, with 1 in 5 children growing up in poverty, Pezzino said.

“It’s hard to be healthy, to make healthy choices when you’re poor,” Pezzino said. “It’s just as simple as that.”

Teen pregnancies are above the state average in Sedgwick County, as is the number of sexually transmitted diseases.

Drug overdoses, which primary affect young people, also contribute to Sedgwick County’s premature death rate, the years of “potential life lost” when people die before age 75, Pezzino said. The premature death rate for Sedgwick County has been on rising since 2015.

A factor that benefited the county’s ranking was the number of preventable hospital stays, which have decreased in recent years and fall below state and national trends. The county surpassed the state average in number of primary care physicians, dentists and mental health providers.

This story was originally published March 29, 2017 at 7:02 AM with the headline "How healthy is Sedgwick County compared to the rest of Kansas?."