People in different countries have different health behaviors. This implies that even the health statuses of people are different from one county to another. This is explicitly reflected by the County Health Rankings and Roadmaps, produced under a collaboration between the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute. One of the counties examined under these rankings is Essex County in New Jersey (University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, & Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 2022). This paper assesses Essex County’s Overall Rankings in Health Outcomes to ascertain its performance against other counties in New Jersey.
I am not surprised by the fact that the rate of premature deaths in Essex County is significantly higher than the average premature death in the entire state. In the county, premature death, standing at 7,900 deaths against New Jersey’s average of 6,300, is primarily attributed to accidents, heart diseases, and covid-19 (University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, & Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 2022). This is not surprising because while growing up in Essex Country, I realized that accidents claimed several people’s lives every day. This is attributed to several factors, including laxity in enforcing road-use laws. Essex Country was also one of New Jersey’s counties worst hit by the coronavirus disease. Therefore, it is no surprise that the county registers one of the highest premature death rates in the entire state.
I am overly surprised about the HIV prevalence in Essex County compared to that of the state’s average. While the HIV prevalence in Essex County stands at 1,376, the state’s average stands at 468. This implies that roughly, the HIV prevalence of Essex County is three times that of the state’s average HIV prevalence (University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, & Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 2022). This is an excessively high figure that reveals big gaps as far as the implementation of different strategies and interventions to curtail the spread of HIV in the county is concerned. Such figures also come off as something to worry about because it shows how easily HIV can spread to people within Essex County.
I am also not astonished about how the different health behaviors of people in Essex County compared with those of others in other counties or even the state’s average. For instance, in behaviors such as adult smoking, adult obesity, food environment index, physical inactivity, excessive drinking, teen births, and sexually transmitted infections, the rate in Essex County is significantly higher than the state’s average (University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, & Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 2022). This implies that Essex Country remains among the top counties with the highest prevalence of negative health behaviors.
However, I am overly surprised that there are some health behaviors in which Essex Country fares significantly better than other counties in New Jersey. For example, the rate of access to exercise opportunities in Essex County stands at 99 percent, while the state’s average is 91 percent. While the rate of alcohol-impaired driving deaths in Essex Country is 16 percent, the state’s average stands at 23 percent (University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, & Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 2022). This gives a ray of hope in the ability of authorities to revitalize the county’s health care status and ensure that people in Essex County enjoy significantly better healthcare outcomes than those of other counties in New Jersey. This also implies that by capitalizing on these areas, Essex County can set itself as a model county for the rest of the counties in New Jersey or even others in other states.
References
University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, & Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. (2022). County Health rankings & roadmaps. County Health Rankings & Roadmaps. https://www.countyhealthrankings.org/app/new-jersey/2022/rankings/essex/county/outcomes/overall/snapshot
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