The County Health Rankings & Roadmaps program is a collaboration between the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute. We know that much of what influences our health happens outside of the doctor’s office—in our schools, workplaces and neighborhoods.
County Health Rankings & Roadmaps help communities create solutions that make it easier for people to be healthy in their own communities, focusing on specific factors that we know affect health, such as education and income. Having health insurance and quality health care are important to our health, but we need leadership and action beyond health care.
Ranking the health of nearly every county in the nation, the County Health Rankings illustrate what we know when it comes to what’s making people sick or healthy. The County Health Roadmaps show what we can do to create healthier places to live, learn, work and play.
About the County Health Rankings
The County Health Rankings show the rank of the health of nearly every county in the nation and illustrate that much of what affects health occurs outside of the doctor’s office. The Rankings help counties understand what influences how healthy residents are and how long they will live. The Rankings look at a variety of measures that affect health such as the rate of people dying before age 75, high school graduation rates, unemployment, limited access to healthy foods, air and water quality, income, and rates of smoking, obesity and teen births. Based on data available for each county, the Rankings are unique in their ability to measure the overall health of each county in all 50 states on the many factors that influence health, and they have been used to garner support among government agencies, healthcare providers, community organizations, business leaders, policymakers, and the public for local health improvement initiatives.
About the County Health Roadmaps
The County Health Roadmaps are helping communities bring people together from all walks of life to look at the many factors that influence health, focus on strategies that we know work, learn from other communities so we don’t have to reinvent the wheel, and make changes that will have a lasting impact on health. To do this, the project includes grants to coalitions across the U.S. to improve the health of people in their communities; grants to national organizations to mobilize local leaders and affiliates to improve health; the RWJF Roadmaps to Health Prize to recognize communities whose promising efforts will likely lead to better health; and guides, tools, and consultation to help improve people’s health.
