TRACY HARRIS
tharris@themarshallcountypost.com
This article is part of a series that breaks down the health of Marshall County residents using the newest report from County Health Rankings National Finding Report.
Health Outcomes contains three categories: Length of Life, Quality of Life, and Additional Health Outcomes that are not included in the county’s overall ranking. Last week, we covered the first two sections-Length of Life and Quality of Life. This week we look at Additional Health Outcomes
As a reminder, Marshall County ranked 26th out of all 95 Tennessee counties in 2023, a drastic improvement from just a decade ago. Using Health Outcomes, Health Factors, and County Demographics, a yearly report is released by County Health Rankings & Roadmaps, a program at the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute. The purpose of the program is to provide data, evidence, guidance, and examples to help raise awareness of factors that influence health. The 2023 County Health Rankings National finding Report focused on the connection between civic health and thriving people and places. Health Outcomes shows how long people live on average in a community, and how much physical and mental health they experience. We ranked in the higher middle range of counties in the state (higher 50%-75%).
Additional Health Outcomes, while not included in our overall ranking, contains valuable information. There are seven Additional Health Outcomes: Life Expectancy, Premature Age-Adjusted Mortality, Child Mortality, Infant Mortality, Frequent Physical Distress, Frequent Mental Distress, Diabetes Prevalence, and HIV Prevalence.
Life Expectancy in Marshall County was 74.9 years, falling short of the national average of 78.5 years.
Premature Age-Adjusted Mortality measures the number of deaths among residents under the age of 75 per 100,000. Obviously Marshall County does not have that many residents and in smaller populations like ours, the data may show a lot of change in premature death rates from year to year. The age of a county’s population will affect the numbers, because as age increases, poor health outcomes are more likely. In Marshall County, there were 480 deaths per 100,000 people age 75 or younger.
Child Mortality was 60 deaths per 100,000 children under the age of 18. For this calculation, the number of deaths occurring before the age of 18 was the divided by the total population under the age of 18. Infant Mortality in Marshall County showed there were 9 deaths among children that were under a year old per 1,000 live births. For this calculation, the numerator is the cumulative number of deaths that occurred before one year of age and the denominator was the total number of live births.
Frequent Physical Distress uses the question “Now thinking about your physical health, which includes physical illness and injury, for how many days during the past 30 days was your physical health not good?” to determine scores. In Marshall County, 12% of adults reported they experienced poor physical health for 14 or more days over the last 30 days. Marshall County was 3% higher than the national average.
Frequent Mental Distress shows how many adults experienced 14 or more days of mental distress. The question to gauge mental distress was, “Now, thinking about your mental health, which includes stress, depression, and problems with emotions, for how many days during the past 30 days was your mental health not good?” Her in Marshall County, 18% of the adults reported having 14 or more days of poor mental health over the past month – 4% higher than the national average.
Diabetes Prevalence is the measurement of adults 18 and older with diagnosed diabetes. The number of adults who answered “yes” to “Has a doctor ever told you that you have diabetes?” was divided by the total number of adult respondents. Type 1 and Type 2 diagnoses were both included and women who only had diabetes while pregnant were not. In Marshall County, 11% of adults indicated they had a diabetes diagnosis. The national average was 9% and the Tennessee average was 13%. While we are doing better than the state’s average, we are a bit above the national average.
HIV Prevalence was the one category under Additional Health Outcomes where Marshall County did very well. Only 116 of every 100,000 residents ages 13 and above are living with an HIV diagnosis. Marshall County HIV prevalence is one-third of the state average and almost one-fourth of the national average.
Part three in the series will include some of the data on Health Factors. Health Factors contain four categories in the overall ranking: Health Behaviors, Clinical Care, Social & Economic Factors, and Physical Environment. All four of these categories have additional information that’s not included in the overall ranking-for a total of eight categories.
