May 2011 - Parks & Recreation - 22

Who, What, Where & how Around the Parks

P A R K S & H E A LT H

Health Starts Where You Live, Learn, Work and Play
Ranking counties by their health

T

he 2011 County Health
Rankings, released earlier this year by the Unive r s i t y o f W i s c o n s i n
Population Health Institute
and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation,
provides an annual check-up of the health
of communities within each state and illustrates that where we live, learn, work,
and play matters to our health.
The health of a community depends
on many different factors including
health behaviors, such as smoking and
exercise; access to and quality of health
care, education, and jobs; and the phys 
ical environment. A community's health
can be improved by implementing innovative programs and policies. For example, people who live in communities
with good parks and recreation
space are more likely to exercise, which reduces heart disease risk.
The County Health Rankings
provide two summary ranks for
counties within each state: Health
Outcomes and Health Factors.
Health Outcomes describe quality of and length of life and represent the current health of a
county. Health Factors describe
health behaviors, clinical care,
social and economic factors, and
the physical environment and
represent what influences the future health of the county.
Overall, the rankings tell us
three things:
■■  Where we live, work, learn, and
play matters to our health, and
much of what influences our
health occurs outside of the doctor's office;
■■   Where counties are doing well

20	 Parks & Recreation

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and where there are opportunities for improvement; and
■■  Improving the health of a community is a
shared responsibility between government, health care, philanthropy, education, business, and community leaders.
Leading a healthy lifestyle is easier if
you live in a community that has access
to healthy foods and recreational facilities, has a good education system, has a
strong economy, fosters supportive relationships and networks, provides access
to quality health care, fosters and encourages healthy behaviors, and has a clean
and safe physical environment. Unfortunately, there are great location-based
disparities throughout the nation and
many people live in communities where
leading a healthy lifestyle is difficult. The

www.NRPA .ORG

2011 County Health Rankings reveal that:
■■  Unhealthy counties have significantly lower high school graduation rates;
■■  Unhealthy counties have more than twice
as many children in poverty;
■■  Unhealthy counties have fewer grocery
stores or farmers' markets; and
■■  Unhealthy counties have higher rates of
violent crime.
Moreover, the 2011 rankings results
show that even the healthiest counties
throughout the nation have areas where
they can improve. For example, all counties can work towards decreasing the
rate of adult obesity in their communities. Park and recreation professionals
have important expertise and perspective to contribute to making their communities healthier places.

Taking Action
Imagine a nation where residents in all communities have a
good quality of life, have excellent access to quality health care,
live in a clean and safe physical
environment, and have access to
healthy foods. Working together
in a coordinated fashion, we can
improve the health of our communities throughout the country
by improving the overall quality
of life in our communities, cleaning up our environment, and improving access to healthy foods
and recreational facilities.
There are many things that
you can do to improve the health
of communities throughout the
nation including:
Learn: Use the rankings to
learn about what is going well in
your community and to identify
opportunities for improvement.
May 2011 - Parks & Recreation

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of May 2011 - Parks & Recreation
