Racial Disparities in Health Outcomes and Factors That Affect Health: Findings from the 2011 County Health Rankings

Nathan R. Jones, University of Wisconsin-Madison

In 2011, the second annual County Health Rankings summarized geographic differences at the county level in morbidity, mortality, health behaviors, clinical care, socioeconomic factors, and the physical environment with ranks based on relative levels of health indicators within states. In addition to regional variations in health identified in the main findings, the Rankings provide a rich data source to identify systematic racial disparities in important health outcomes and related factors. This paper explores a range of evidence that communities with relatively large proportions of non-white residents are consistently among the lowest ranked counties, nearly absent from the best ranked counties, and suffer from a range issues associated with poorer health outcomes.