By MARTA HEPLER DRAHOS
TRAVERSE CITY -- How healthy is the Grand Traverse region?
It depends on where you live.
A new report out of the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute ranks Leelanau as the third healthiest county in Michigan, followed by Grand Traverse at eighth. Ranking lowest: Antrim at 43rd, Benzie at 51st and Kalkaska at 66th. Michigan has 83 counties but only 82 were ranked.
The County Health Rankings used multiple factors that affect health -- from tobacco use, obesity and access to health care, to education, community safety and air quality -- to come up with a scorecard for each county in the country. The idea is for public health and community leaders to use the reports to tackle health issues in their communities.
Leelanau had the lowest rates of smoking and alcohol use in the state and the third-lowest rate of unsafe sex. It ranked second best in quality of care and education and fourth best in employment and family and social support.
The rankings were only mildly surprising to the county's top health official.
"I knew the numbers were good, but not that good," said Bill Crawford, director of the Benzie-Leelanau District Health Department.
Grand Traverse also fared well, ranking third in education and fourth in diet and exercise. But that doesn't mean the county should be complacent, warned Fred Keeslar, Grand Traverse County Health Department director. It's a message he planned to bring to area lawmakers in Lansing on Wednesday.
"We have a lot of work to do to stop smoking, exercise, eat a better diet," Keeslar said. "We still have our challenges: obesity is an issue, and diabetes. Where we stand isn't necessarily good news."
Keeslar said the County Health Rankings pulled some of its numbers from studies done as long ago as 2005 and don't take into consideration changes to the county's health since the economic downtown. For instance, 70 percent of babies born in Grand Traverse County now qualify for WIC, a supplemental nutrition program for women, infants and children.
"If you were to look at the rankings you'd say the health here is pretty good. But is that an accurate picture of today, right now?" he said. "It's a measuring point, but there's a lot more information out there that needs to be understood. It's not the whole story. It's not a victory."
Conversely, counties may be doing better in some areas than the rankings imply. Grand Traverse came in 67th in physical environment, which took into consideration factors like air pollution-ozone days, access to healthy foods and liquor store density. But the ranking was based partially on the number of grocery stores and markets, most of which are located in the northwest corner of the county where the majority of people live, Keeslar said.
And while Leelanau County ranked at the very bottom -- 82nd -- in access to health care, "that is mitigated by the fact that we're right next to Grand Traverse County and a lot of residents go to Grand Traverse County for their care," Crawford said.
The report said poorly ranked counties like Kalkaska often had multiple challenges to overcome, including high unemployment and poverty rates, high smoking and obesity rates and high numbers of liquor stores and fast-food outlets but few places to buy fresh fruits and vegetables. Those factors also helped account for the wide disparity in rankings between some neighboring counties like Leelanau and Benzie.
Crawford said health officials will go over the report in more detail over the next few weeks and will choose two or three issues to work on as a result. But he said the health department is driven by what it can afford to do and what the state requires it to do.
"All the prevention money is gone," he said. "We don't get money for things like diabetes screening or smoking cessation or nutrition classes. Those are things I see as pretty substantial concerns. My struggle is how we can impact things effectively that we know we should impact.
"I would like to think we'll be looking at adult obesity issues because that's an issue that is going to manifest itself in a number of ways over the years including hypertension and diabetes," he said. "But it's not the health department telling the community what to do. It's the community sitting down with the health department and together coming up with some common goals."
Indeed, some of the social and economic factors like poverty can only be addressed by the community at large, said Phil Ellis, executive director of the Grand Traverse Regional Community Foundation.
"It's up to all of us to think strategically about what are the factors and what are the health outcomes and what are the ways we can strategically impact them to improve the quality of life in the area," said Ellis, whose foundation manages 280 endowment and nonendowment funds serving the five-county region. "Philanthropy is not the solution but part of the solution to a variety of things."
For more information, visit www.countyhealthrankings.org/michigan.
