Report ranks county low in health factors
A recent rankings report found that Darlington County was near the bottom in terms of “health outcomes” and “health factors.”
The University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation released its 2019 County Health Rankings Report for every county in the nation, according to CareSouth Carolina, which released a summary of the report.
The rankings help counties understand what influences how healthy residents are and how long they will live. The rankings are unique in their ability to measure the current overall health of each county in all 50 states.
The rankings take into account a variety of measures that affect the future health of communities, including high school graduation rates, access to healthy foods, rates of smoking, obesity and teen births.
The “Health Factors” category in the rankings represents the focus areas that drive how long and well people in the community live, including health behaviors (tobacco use, diet and exercise, alcohol and drug use, sexual activity), clinical care (access to care, quality of care) social and economic factors (education, employment, income, family and social support, community safety) and the physical environment (air and water quality, housing and transit).
According to the findings, more than 240,000 South Carolina children lived in poverty in 2017. And 49 percent of those children in poverty were living in a household that spends more than half of its income on housing costs, leaving little left over for other essentials like healthy foods, transportation and healthcare.
Across the U.S., more than 1 in 10 households spend more than half of their income on housing costs (severe housing cost burden).
Darlington County was ranked No. 38 overall in “Health Outcomes” and No. 31 in “Health Factors.” The county had a rate of 12,000 years of potential life lost before age 75 (premature death rate). It ranked No. 33 overall in quality of life.
In health factors, Darlington County had a 20 percent adult smoking rate, a 40 percent obesity rate, 30 percent physical inactivity rate, a 15 percent excessive drinking rate and saw a 38 percent alcohol-impaired driving death rate in 2018.
CareSouth Carolina says it is working to improve the overall health of these counties. CareSouth Carolina says it is working to make affordable and high-quality care, as well as health education, more accessible to residents of these counties.
CareSouth Carolina operates centers in Bennettsville, Bishopville, Cheraw, Chesterfield, Dillon, Hartsville, Lake View, Latta, McColl and Society Hill.
In addition to permanent centers, CSC offers mobile care through its ROADS mobile units to residents in rural communities where primary care is difficult to receive.