County by County Blog

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

What’s new for 2019!

Publication date
March 19, 2019

As we head into our annual County Health Rankings release, we’re excited to provide new data and resources for taking action to improve health. Here’s what you’ll now find on our website:

Updated data and new measures of community health

Annually, since 2010, we’ve been providing snapshots of health for every county in the nation, and now you’ll find updated data for 2019. Search for your state or county using the search feature in the orange bar above. As you explore your snapshot, look for new measures that help illustrate how counties are faring:  

Additionally, within our Quality of Care measures we’ve added a new ranked measure for Flu Vaccinations and updated the data source for the ranked measures of Preventable Hospital Stays and Mammography Screening.

Why housing matters to health

Our 2019 Key Findings Report highlights the link between housing and health that we’re seeing across the nation. As housing costs have outpaced local incomes, many families not only struggle to acquire and maintain adequate shelter, but also face difficult trade-offs in meeting other basic needs. Did you know that across counties increases in the share of households that are severely housing cost burdened are linked to more children in poverty and more people facing food insecurity? See how housing is impacting health in your state by exploring our 2019 State Health Reports. Find your state report in our Reports section.

Understanding the data

Have you ever wondered what’s behind our methodology or what our measures are representing? We’ve made our data even easier to understand this year with our interactive model of community health and enhanced measure detail pages. You can see how factors such as education and income tie into health. Then make sure to dig deep into every aspect of our model to understand why we rank what we do. Additionally, you can see related policies and programs proven to be effective and find how to get access to city-level data. Start your exploration in our Explore Health Rankings section.

New ways to take action

Our new Action Learning Guides provide a blend of guidance, tools, and hands-on practice to help you move to action. You can take a self-directed journey to learn how policy impacts change, why equity matters to health, and how to engage residents. See what you can learn in our Take Action to Improve Health section.

Want to know more? Join our webinar next month

We’re excited to give you more details about what’s new for our program and what we continue to offer to help you affect change where you live. Join us in April for a webinar that gives an overview of what we do and highlights our new offerings for 2019! Register for our webinar.

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