Sedgwick County's health factors are getting worse, new rankings show
Sedgwick County has been slipping when it comes to health factors, according to annual rankings that show the healthiest and least healthy counties in Kansas.
The county is ranked 87th out of 103 counties for factors that include smoking, obesity, sexually transmitted diseases and teen birth rates. In 2014, it was ranked 75th.
The measure on health outcomes has fluctuated over the years for Sedgwick County, but it dropped from 60th to 72nd between 2017 and 2018.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Institute released the Kansas rankings as part of its County Health Rankings & Roadmaps project.
This was the first year that the rankings have considered race among several of its health measures. The correlation between race and poverty is an important health factor for communities to consider, said Dr. Gianfranco Pezzino, senior fellow at the Kansas Health Institute.
Pezzino said he would like people to see the rankings as “call for action rather than an element of despair.” Communities ought to look at their results and consider how local decisions, including ones about mass transit, zoning, public parks and more, affect health.
According to the 2018 rankings, the five healthiest counties in Kansas, starting with most healthy, are Johnson, Wabaunsee, Riley, Nemaha and Pottawatomie. The five in the poorest health, starting with least healthy, are Republic, Morton, Labette, Woodson and Wyandotte counties.
The counties with the smallest percent of children in poverty were Johnson (5 percent), Hodgeman (7 percent), Pottawatomie (9 percent) and Miami (9 percent).
The counties with the greatest percent of children in poverty were Labette (27 percent), Elk (27 percent), Chautauqua (25 percent) and Bourbon (25 percent).
Statewide, 14 percent of children live in poverty, compared to the U.S. rate of 20 percent. Disparities among racial and ethnic groups in Kansas are stark: they range from 9 to 37 percent, with black children faring the worst and Asian/Pacific Islander children faring the best.
In Sedgwick County, 40 percent of black children live in poverty, compared with 13 percent of white children.
The rankings also show how race correlates with premature death.
In Sedgwick County, the rate of “years of potential life lost” is 12,600 among black people compared with 7,200 for white people.
“That really helps us see the magnitude of some of the problems that we were describing in previous reports,” Pezzino said.
You can view the full list of rankings at www.countyhealthrankings.org.
This story was originally published March 16, 2018 at 3:29 PM with the headline "Sedgwick County's health factors are getting worse, new rankings show."