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Project updates, commentaries, events and news about health across the nation from the County Health Rankings & Roadmaps team.

A Rankings Founder Urges Senate to Focus on Socio-Economic Factors of Health

Publication date
November 20, 2013

With the County Health Rankings, you can see just how much effect socio-economic factors such as income or where you live have on your health. Today, members of a US Senate subcommittee are hearing that message from one of the founders of the Rankings, who was part of a recent article that dives deeper into the socio-economic factors of health for women.

Dr. David Kindig – Emeritus Professor of the University of Wisconsin’s Population Health Sciences Department – testified before a US Senate subcommittee today urging elected officials to focus on health factors beyond just health care.

“While health care is necessary for health, it is not the only or even the most important factor in producing longer life and lives of high quality and productivity,” Kindig testified. “Health is produced by many factors including medical care and health behaviors and, importantly, components of the social and physical environment in which we live in like income, education, social support, and the structure of our neighborhoods.”

Kindig is co-author of the March 2013 article Even as Mortality Fell in Most US Counties, Female Mortality Rose in 42.8 Percent of Counties from 1992 to 2006 . He testified today before the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Subcommittee on Primary Health and Aging for a hearing on “Dying Young: Why Your Social and Economic Status May be a Death Sentence in America.” 

Kindig urged research into and policy choices around the social determinants of health “for a healthier future,” and that even the healthiest area can do better through reducing smoking rates, increasing insurance, increasing high school and college graduation rates, increasing median family income, and increasing employment.

  • Follow this link to learn more and read Dr. Kindig’s testimony. 
  • Follow this link to see a recording of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Subcommittee on Primary Health and Aging hearing.

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