New CT County-By-County Health Rankings Reveal Strengths, Faults

CONNECTICUT — Fairfield and Middlesex Counties are considered among the most healthy in the state, according to this year's recently released County Health Rankings and Roadmaps. On the fuzzy end of that lollipop are Windham and New Haven Counties.

Published annually for the last decade, County Health Rankings is a program led by the University of Wisconsin's Population Health Institute. The goal of the rankings is to help communities better address disparities in health care access.

The rankings look at a variety of measures that affect a community's health, including high school graduation rates and access to healthy foods. Rates for smoking, obesity and teen births are also incorporated.

In addition to assigning each county a number ranking, this year's rankings also compare each county to other counties in a state before placing it in one of four tiers, or quartiles, ranging from most to least healthy.

The 2021 County Health Rankings do not reflect coronavirus cases or deaths, according to researchers, who released this year’s findings mainly to provide a glimpse at what influenced a community’s health long before the COVID-19 pandemic.

"These gaps in opportunity have to be addressed if we want a fair, inclusive, and equitable recovery from the pandemic," the organization wrote on its website.

The organization said it anticipates coronavirus data will be reflected in the 2022 rankings.

It also noted that counties that went into the pandemic with fewer opportunities to better resident health will exit it with "an even greater burden."

"This crisis has only deepened the avoidable and unfair gaps that Black, Latino, Indigenous, and some Asian-American communities faced pre-COVID-19 in jobs with fair pay, housing, education, and more," the organization said on its website.

County Health Rankings used data from a variety of sources to compile this year’s rankings. To see a list of data sources, read the full Connecticut report.