Map 1: Years of Potential Life Lost Before the Age of 75 (YPLL75) 2011-2013
(YPLL75 is a commonly used measure of premature death. We’ll talk more about YPLL75 later on the post.) Blues represent the “unhealthiest” counties, while yellows represent the “healthiest” counties.
For May’s Regional Snapshot, we looked at the state of public health in metro Atlanta and, like most Snapshot topics, it’s complicated. We found that, based on more general measures, metro Atlanta as a whole is improving in public health, especially compared to the rest of the state. Specific conditions, like Low Birthweight Births and Diabetes, are not improving and are issues we need to monitor over the coming years. Here are some of the other key findings:
- Public health generally seems to be improving in most counties over the past decade or so, based on analysis of premature deaths. However, there are some notable exceptions.
- The latest County Health Rankings also show that health is generally improving across metro Atlanta, but again, there are some notable exceptions in mostly the same places.
- We also took a quick look into the state ofcardiovascular disease, as it is the number one public health threat in the U.S. It is also on the decline in metro Atlanta.
- Not all areas in the public health realm are improving. Low birthweight births and diabetesare outliers in the general improvement of public health in the Atlanta area.
- Place matters. As suspected, there is a relationship between where one lives and how healthy one is. Premature death, diabetes, low birthweight births, among others, all are correlated with where poverty levels are the highest in metro Atlanta.
- Race matters. And there is a relationship between one’s race and how healthy she is. Both low birthweight births and diabetes discharges are also correlated with race.
To learn more on this subject, click through the full slide deck below. If you need to print something out, here is something small (our infograph), and here is something big (our full slide deck).