Will County 9th Healthiest County In Illinois: Study

WILL COUNTY, IL — Will County ranked the ninth healthiest of Illinois' 102 counties, according to County Health Rankings by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The study took into account factors like tobacco use, diet and exercise, access to care, education and many more.

DuPage County came in first, followed by Kendall County. In last place was Alexander County in southern Illinois, and Hardin County came second to last.

Other surrounding counties in northern Illinois did fairly well, too. Kendall County came in second in outcomes and fifth in factors; Kane County came in seventh for outcomes and 30th for factors.

Here's a breakdown of how the results were found. Researchers ranked each county on two categories: health outcomes and health factors.

The health outcome score (Will County placed 9th) is a combination of length of life and quality of life. The health factors score (Will County placed 23rd) comes from health behaviors, clinical care, social and economic factors and physical environment.

They broke down the factors into subcategories. Health behaviors involves habits like tobacco use, diet and exercise, alcohold and rug use and sexual activity. Clinical care comes from access to, and quality of, health care. Social and economic factorscome from education, employment, income and more. Physical environment is ranked from air and water quality as well as housing and transit.

The study also found that historically marginalized groups have fewer opportunities and resources. These groups include people of color, people living in poverty, people with physical and mental disablities, the LGBTQ community and women, the study said.

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