While we're all waiting for the Supreme Court to rule on the Affordable Care Act, the 2012 County Health Rankings were released yesterday for all counties in the US. An interactive map for Pennsylvania can be seen with all of the county rankings for an overall measure that considers morbidity and mortality above. Ranked first is Union County(abbrev. UN) and last out of 67 counties is Philadelphia (PH). These counties were the same in 2011. Both counties were similar in the percent uninsured in 2009, the most recent year Census Bureau estimates are available, with the 2nd and 3rd highest rates in the state as can be seen in the table below. The graph shows that in 2011 both were below the statewide median household income of $50,702 with Philadelphia having $37,090 and Union having $45,545.
While overall rankings are interesting and make for interesting press articles such as "Are Philadelphians eating too many cheesesteaks?" they can gloss over important information such as income, the uninsured and gender. I haven't yet looked at the 2012 data to see how it differs from last years but expect to find more info on how the recession is impacting the health of Pennsylvania. Union and Philadelphia Counties caught my eye at first glance.
Teasing apart cause an effect relationships is a lot more difficult. Uninsured status (and underinsured status which is a lot harder to measure), gender and median household income are just two of the many possible confounding variables on health status. This does not mean that one should not try to find these relationships. It's better to rely on raw measures like the ones below than constructed ones like in the map above for these relationships.
Teasing apart cause an effect relationships is a lot more difficult. Uninsured status (and underinsured status which is a lot harder to measure), gender and median household income are just two of the many possible confounding variables on health status. This does not mean that one should not try to find these relationships. It's better to rely on raw measures like the ones below than constructed ones like in the map above for these relationships.
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| Top 10 County Uninsured Rates in 2009 Overall & by Gender |
Well done, Paul!
ReplyDeleteThanks Sandy. You do good work at the Western PA Coalition for Single Payer too.
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