Douglas healthiest county in state; Carson City 10th

MINDEN - Douglas is the healthiest county in one of the least healthy states in the nation, according to a report issued by an advocacy group on Wednesday.

Pershing, Humboldt, Elko and Washoe counties round out the top five, according to www.countyhealthrankings

.org.

Carson City is 10th out of the 15 counties ranked. Storey and Lyon are 7 and 8. The bottom five are Mineral, Lander, Nye, White Pine and Lincoln counties. Esmeralda and Eureka counties did not appear in the ranking.

Another advocacy group ranked Nevada 45th in the nation for overall health in 2009. The second highest ranking state on americashealthrankings.org is Utah. If Douglas County were still part of the Beehive State, it would rank sixth behind Davis County, Utah.

The county ratings were released in a report by the University of Wisconsin's Population Health Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The County Health Rankings are the first to rank the overall health of the counties in all 50 states - more than 3,000 total - by using a standard formula to measure how healthy people are and how long they live.

"This report shows us that there are big differences in overall health across Nevada's counties, due to many factors, ranging from individual behavior to quality of health care, to education and jobs, to access to healthy foods, and to quality of the air," says Patrick Remington, M.D., M.P.H., associate dean for Public Health, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. "For the first time, every person can compare the overall health of their county to the health of other counties in Nevada, and also see where the state needs to improve."

Researchers used five measures to assess the level of overall health or "health outcomes" for Nevada by county: the rate of people dying before age 75, the percent of people who report being in fair or poor health, the numbers of days people report being in poor physical and poor mental health, and the rate of low-birthweight infants.