Starke County Listed as One of the Unhealthiest Counties in the State

Starke County ranked 91st out of 92 counties on a health report. The University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation released the report that uses a formula to measure how healthy people are and how long they live in each county.

The county with the poorest health report was Scott County in southeastern Indiana.

The 10 healthiest counties were Hamilton, Dubois, Boone, LaGrange, Hendricks, Warrick, De Kalb, Wells, Whitley, and Marshall.

Fulton County ranked 54th, Jasper County 48th, Kosciusko County 20th, LaPorte 63rd, Porter County 18th, Pulaski County 79th, White County 29th and St. Joseph County 43rd.

The health factors the researchers looked at included: Rates of adult smoking, adult obesity, excessive drinking among adults, teenage births, the number of uninsured adults, availability of primary care providers, preventable hospital stays, high school graduation rates, adults who attend college, children in poverty, community safety, access to healthy foods, and air pollution.