BRACK: New year brings new look at how we’re doing as community

By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | Just as individuals review how they’re doing at the beginning of a new year, a practice that fuels resolutions that seek to transform lives, maybe now is a good time to take a reading of how our county as a whole is doing based on an array of statistics.

For this, we turn to CountyHealthRankings.org, a collaborative tool by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute that offers accessibility to data to seek to build awareness of factors that influence health across the United States and engage leaders to create change to make places healthier.

On balance in South Carolina, Charleston is the third healthiest county in the state — which is good. But some of the shine comes off when you realize that a separate state-by-state ranking shows South Carolina as the nation’s ninth unhealthiest state.

So we’re doing well, but we’re still toward the bottom. The good thing about the county rating site is it provides comparisons between particular counties and the top performing U.S. counties to show how we rank nationally on various measures.

The good news:

• On quality of life measures, Charleston County is about even with top performers with fewer numbers of people with poor or fair health — 11 percent of people, compared to 16 percent across the state.

• On health factors, we’re lower than the rest of the state and somewhat near top performers on adult smoking (18 percent), adult obesity (26 percent) and the percentage of adults with no leisure-time recreational activities (21 percent).

• We’re best in the state on clinical care factors, outperforming much of the nation on the ratio of people to primary care physicians (792:1), dentists (978:1) and mental health providers (333:1).       Additionally we’re ranked well on preventable hospital stays and the percentage of older people who receive mammography screening.

• On social and economic factors, we’re ranked sixth in South Carolina and ranked higher than top performing counties in the numbers of people with some college (72.8 percent).

More work needed:

• Quality of life: Charleston County has higher rates of death of people before age 72 (7,271 per 100,000 people, compared to 5,200 for top performers). Some 9.4 percent of babies are born with low birth weights, compared to 5.9 percent for top performers.

• Health factors: We drink too much, with 23 percent of adults reporting binge or heavy drinking, compared to 10 percent of high performers and 14 percent of South Carolinians. We have too many alcohol-related deaths — 52 percent, compared to 14 percent for top performers. We have higher rates of sexually transmitted infections (680 per 100,000 people, which is more than five times higher than top performers) and our rate of teen births is twice as high as top performers (39 per 1,000, compared to 20 per 1,000).

• Clinical care: One in five Charleston County residents doesn’t have health insurance, compared to 11 percent of top performers.

• Social/economic factors: Twice as many children (26 percent) live in poverty, compared to the best of American counties. Income equality is greater. Twice as many children (41 percent) live in households with one parent.       Violent crime is much higher — 476 incidents per 100,000 people, compared to 59 per 100,000 in top performing communities.

• And something we found particularly interesting: the number of social associations, such as clubs, civic organizations, churches, labor organizations, fitness centers — places that people meet and interact — is 11.1 per 1,000 people. That’s about half the number of top performing counties. Fewer places to meet and less frequent contact, experts say, are associated with higher risk of death and early mortality.

• The data also show that our physical environment poses some challenges, with higher levels of air pollution than top performers as well as higher rates of people with housing problems, those who drive alone to work and those who have long commutes.

With the new year at hand, we encourage you to take a look at how we’re doing — and to work together to reduce bad numbers to improve our overall quality of life.