County Health Rankings: What’s New for 2018

The ninth annual County Health Rankings are now live! Get started today by searching for your county or state.

You’ll find new data, resources, and tools across our site to help you to see how healthy your county is and easily move with data to action to improve health. For 2018 we’ve added:

New and updated data
Go to your county’s snapshot to see updated rankings and new data for all the measures we track. Be on the lookout for new features, including:

• Updated data on the Leading Causes of Death – select the icon next to the “Premature death” measure in your snapshot to see updated values.
• Easy-to-find demographic breakdowns – for selected measures (such as Diabetes monitoring, Mammography screening, Children in poverty, Median household income, and Driving alone to work, and more), click on the county value for the measure to see a breakdown by racial/ethnic groups.
• New trend graphs for our Uninsured measures – we’ve added graphs that show you changes over time for our Additional Clinical Care Measures; see those in your county’s Snapshot.

State reports focused on health equity
Our enhanced State Reports for 2018 call attention to the size and nature of differences in opportunity and health, offer strategies to increase opportunities for health and equity, and provide examples of communities taking action to advance health and equity. These improved reports highlight how disparities exist within your state by both place and race and what it means for where you live.

New Key Findings Report
The 2018 Key Findings Report shares the results of our new analyses, which show that meaningful health gaps persist not only by place but also by race. The report shows health gaps in low birthweight, unemployment, and high school graduation for counties across the nation as well as the impact of residential segregation. It also highlights communities that have taken action to address these disparities and offers strategies to help communities move the needle on health equity.

Vea la instantánea de su condado en español
See your county snapshot in Spanish! County snapshots are now available in Spanish as well as English to continue to expand the accessibility of the County Health Rankings. To see the Spanish snapshot, select the “Español” button in the top right corner of your snapshot or at the end of the list of counties on the left. And be sure to spread the word to those you know who might want to use this new feature!

Find your peer county and compare
In collaboration with the CDC, County Health Rankings & Roadmaps is offering an enhanced peer county comparison tool to give you another way to gauge the health of your community. In addition to comparing any two counties in the country, you can now select from a list of counties that are similar to yours based on key demographic, social, and economic indicators. Select “Compare Counties” at the top of your snapshot to get started.

Easier-to-use tools, resources for community health improvement
We recently refreshed our site, adding new content and functionality to help you better find what we offer, including:

• A redesigned What Works for Health search tool – find evidence-informed policies and programs by keyword and topic, as well as new and updated strategies that could be a fit for your community.
• New Partner Center – view tools and guides that make it easy for you to locate and engage the right partners. With sections dedicated to the “why” each sector should be a part of building healthy communities, the “what” they can do to be involved, and the “how” you can get them involved, the Partner Center is a one-stop shop for building partnerships.
• A redesigned Action Center – access enhanced insights and guidance to help communities navigate their health improvement path.

Join our webinar on March 27 for a deeper dive into the new state reports and guidance on how to use the data from them to take action and improve health in your community. Review the webinar details now!