The health of a community is determined by a number of health factors including the quality of health care, health behaviors, socioeconomic factors and the physical environment. It is these factors, and their corresponding health outcomes, that the County Health Rankings, a signature product of the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, uses to rank Wisconsin communities.
The Rankings look at population health in the form of health factors and health outcomes. In contrasting measures of population health and its determinants, across counties the Rankings stimulate and engage discussion with Wisconsin’s health policy and public health communities.
The Rankings are a call to action for leaders in health care, business, education, government, media and other sectors to take a comprehensive approach to improving the health for all within their communities.
The first edition of the Rankings was released in 2003 as an Institute Working Paper. Since 2003, the Wisconsin County Health Rankings have been published annually. The Rankings are now done nationally, ranking counties within states. The current Rankings can be found at countyhealthrankings.org.