Today’s numbers
Thursday, Mar 27, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* The AP reports on a new study of healthy by county…
The overall health ranking for Cook County, the state’s most populous, was 75 of the 102 Illinois counties.
Collar counties Kendall and DuPage ranked second and third, respectively, and Kane was ninth.
The study looks at factors such as high school graduation rates, access to health providers and healthy foods as well as rates of smoking, obesity and teen births. […]
Not surprisingly, the healthiest Illinois county, Woodford in Central Illinois, had some of the state’s best scores for individual health and social and economic factors. Its childhood poverty rate was 8 percent.
Alexander County in Illinois’ far southern tip was at the bottom. Forty-nine percent of children there were living in poverty and the unemployment rate was 11.4 percent.
The study is here.
- VanillaMan - Thursday, Mar 27, 14 @ 1:15 pm:
Everyone move to Woodford and live forever!
- wordslinger - Thursday, Mar 27, 14 @ 1:22 pm:
Seems you could have just ranked the counties that have areas of high concentrations of poverty and got the same results.
- Pensioner - Thursday, Mar 27, 14 @ 1:24 pm:
SHHHHH!
- RNUG - Thursday, Mar 27, 14 @ 1:30 pm:
The people compiling the Sangamon County statistics must have included all the fat cats under the dome …
- Skeptic - Thursday, Mar 27, 14 @ 1:57 pm:
One big fat “Meh.” Compare Morgan (ranked 36) with Sangamon (ranked 81st) (for those of you north of I-80, Morgan county borders the west side of Sangamon) and wonder how they figured the weighting.
- thechampaignlife - Thursday, Mar 27, 14 @ 2:40 pm:
But counties don’t vote…
- Union Man - Thursday, Mar 27, 14 @ 4:23 pm:
Been in Kendall County for 45 years!! Wohoo!!!!
- DuPage Dave - Thursday, Mar 27, 14 @ 5:16 pm:
This is a real study, not one of those “Best Places to Live in America” dreck pieces. Lots of real data with statistical adjustments. Too complicated to really comment on without looking further.
The key with any ranking of this type is the weights that are assigned to the variables. With so many variables its impossible to tell at a glance which are the most critical to the rankings.
- Nearly Normal - Thursday, Mar 27, 14 @ 5:17 pm:
FYI, Woodford County is close enough for commuters to work in Peoria and use their medical services. It is considered part of the Peoria Metropolitan Statistical Area
Population in 2010 was 38,664 with 98.4% white, .25 African-American, etc. Median family income was $58,305.
- VanillaMan - Friday, Mar 28, 14 @ 8:02 am:
One big fat “Meh.” Compare Morgan (ranked 36) with Sangamon (ranked 81st) (for those of you north of I-80, Morgan county borders the west side of Sangamon) and wonder how they figured the weighting.
Sorry. That was my fault. I am an 800 pound chain-smoking unwed mother with a third grade education. Oh, and a heroin addict.
- I B Strapped - Friday, Mar 28, 14 @ 8:14 am:
So, what keeps Alexander county in the Democrat column so solidly?