Monroe County ranks as No. 17 healthiest Ind. county

Monroe County ranked in the top 18 percent of all Indiana counties in terms of overall health, according to a recent annual report released by the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute.

The county was number 17 of the 92 Indiana counties ranked in the annual report, which has been published since 2010 in collaboration with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to improving health and health care in the United States.

The health outcomes used to assess each county included morbidity and mortality, which measures people’s health and how long they will live. More than 3,000 counties in the U.S. are ranked annually by health outcomes, as well as health factors — behaviors, availability and quality of care, environment and socioeconomic demographics.

“These issues are not for local health departments and the medical community only,” said Gregory Larkin, health commissioner for the Indiana State Department of Health. “Many factors influence our health, like our levels of education and income, our access to healthy nutritious foods and our access to smoke-free air to breathe.”

The amount of adults who smoke in Monroe County dropped slightly from 21 percent in 2011 to 20 percent this year.

Since May 2011, the Monroe County Tobacco Prevention and Cessation Coalition has worked to prevent and reduce tobacco use in Monroe County.

The coalition offers several tobacco cessation classes throughout the county at places such as IU Health Bloomington Hospital, the Volunteers in Medicine clinic and the IU Health Center.

This year’s report also shows that 17 percent of adults in Monroe County are uninsured. This is compared to 25 percent in the 2011 report.

Carol Weiss-Kennedy, director of the community health program at IU Health Bloomington Hospital, said the hospital has three key programs to improve community health, including access to care.

“We developed a program called Individual Solutions, and they have staff that screen people who need health care or need health insurance,” she said.

“They screen them for what programs are available, so it might be Healthy Indiana Plan or one of the Medicare programs which those people might be eligible for. That’s been one IU Health program that I think really contributed to the rankings.”

In the last couple of years, the Individual Solutions department has expanded, Weiss-Kennedy said.

The percentage of Monroe County women who received mammograms was 70 percent in this year’s report, which rose from 60 percent in last year’s ranking.

Jon Mills, the director of marketing and communications for Planned Parenthood of Indiana, said Planned Parenthood clinics in Indiana performed more than 14,000 breast exams that led to thousands of referrals.

Jo Hargesheimer, social work coordinator for the Volunteers in Medicine, said the clinic, which opened in April 2007, offers both mammograms and diabetic screenings.

The annual report shows 84 percent of Monroe County adults received diabetic screenings.

“This report is an annual check-up of the health of our counties,” Larkin said. “It is a tool to help us create a healthier Indiana.”