County Ranks Highest in Health Ratings in Maryland

For Immediate Release: Wednesday, March 14, 2018

Montgomery County ranks as the healthiest county in Maryland, according to the 2018 County Health Rankings (CHR). The CHR, a collaboration of the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, compares counties within each state on more than 30 factors that impact health, including social determinants such as education, jobs, housing, exercise, commuting times and more.  According to the latest rankings, the five healthiest counties in Maryland are Montgomery County, followed by Howard County, Carroll County, Calvert and Frederick County.

 

“I am proud that Montgomery County is again the healthiest county in Maryland,” said County Executive Isiah Leggett. “We will continue working to build on our efforts of engaging our community partners and the public in in making our community’s health a priority.”

 

“The county health rankings highlight the tremendous work of our government and community agencies and our residents in health and human services,” said County Health Officer Dr. Travis Gayles.   “While we celebrate the rankings, we also recognize that there is still much work to do to remove any disparities in health and ensure that every segment of our county population benefits from those improved outcomes.”

 

The data used in the ranking of many of the health outcomes (today’s health) and health factors (tomorrow’s health) were compiled from population datasets and surveys based on samples of the population with the counties, much like the surveys and polls conducted during election years.

           

Healthy Montgomery, the county’s community health improvement process, was launched in June 2009 and brings together health providers, hospitals, insurers, County agencies and community members.  A second Community Health Needs Assessment was recently completed in 2016.  Co-chaired by Councilmember George Leventhal and Jackie DeCarlo, executive director of MANNA Food, Healthy Montgomery has work groups focused on such health issues as chronic diseases, behavioral health and Health in All Policies (HiAP) that improves population health by incorporating health considerations into decision-making across sectors and policy areas.  The goal for Healthy Montgomery is to continuously assess population health outcomes and contributing factors, and systematically share such information across sectors and the community to inform intervention efforts and improve population health.

 

For more information about the rankings, visit www.countyhealthrankings.org.  For more information about Healthy Montgomery, visit www.healthymontgomery.org.

 

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Release ID: 18-476
Media Contact: Mary Anderson 240-777-6534