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Every year The University of Wisconsin publishes County Health Rankings to help local governments see how they compare to other communities and what they can improve.
Dona Ana County was ranked the 5th healthiest county in New Mexico, but was ranked closer to the middle in the different health behaviors categories. Jamie Michael, Director of Dona Ana County’s Health and Human Services Department, says this helps show where the County can improve.
“So the current population of people,” Michael said. “We know that they are living relatively long, and living relatively high quality lives. But when we look at the factors that are going to influence future health, so the trends for future years, We need to look at where we can make some improvements.”
Michael said some of the factors that are a priority include improving access to care, improving habits like healthy eating and exercise, and helping to stop alcohol and drug abuse. She says one of the ways they are looking to improve this is by providing support to families.
“That’s where the work that our staff does at the community resource centers to offer parents, primarily, who are raising young children support for how to raise healthy children,” Michael said. “How to make healthy decisions in their home, how to improve their economic status, how to ensure their child’s education. All of those factors will then hopefully in the future years help with improving the child’s health as they grow, and then maintain a healthy population over time.”
She says the rankings help them figure out what they can do to improve health in the county.
“The county as an organization needs to look at systems,” Michael said. “So, we do need to look at things like where fresh food is available to people, or where it’s not available. Again the access to different types of physicians and medical care, and the one area where we ranked very low in our state was the physical environment so we really need to look at some environmental health issues.”
But, she says the County can’t improve health rankings on it’s own.
“This is definitely going to take a coordinated approach,” Michael said. “And I think our community is a great size because we are small enough for all of us to come together, but we are large enough for us to have some resources. So, there are a lot of key partners that have already started coming together and looking at how we can find some collective ways that we can all be marching in the same direction so to speak.”
She says there are also some things that individuals can do to improve the county’s overall health.
“There are a couple top things,” Michael said. “Wear a seatbelt, so we reduce injuries related to motor vehicle crashes. Don’t smoke. Eat healthy foods, and exercise. So, if we can do those for things as individuals, regardless of access to care and the type of doctors that we have, if we can do those four things as individuals we are going to make a big difference in our own health.”
The health rankings study is based on 30 different factors that influence health.
