Premature deaths, citizens with "poor" health drop county's health ranking in new report.

Erie County's health ranking has tumbled because of increases in the county's premature death rate and percentages of its people who admitted having bad health.

The county ranks 56th out of 67 Pennsylvania counties in health outcomes, its length and quality of life, in the 2017 County Health Rankings report released Wednesday. It ranked 45th in the 2016 report.

"We know these rankings are comparing us to other counties in the state, and from that standpoint things don't look wonderful," said Charlotte Berringer, R.N., director of community health for the Erie County Department of Health. "But when you look at the categories used for ranking, we see some definite improvement in some areas."

The report, a collaboration of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, compares every county in the United States in 58 different factors that researchers believe affect a person's health. Thirty-five of those factors are used to rank counties within each state.

Erie County's health outcomes dropped because it saw an increase in its premature death rate from 7,300 years of potential life lost before age 75 per 100,000 residents in 2011-13 to 7,400 years lost in 2012-14, the most recent years for which data was available.

Other counties across the U.S. witnessed similar increases, and the report's publishers said a main reason is a nationwide rise in drug overdose deaths.

"The rankings allow local leaders to clearly see and prioritize the challenges they face, whether it's rising premature death rates or the growing drug overdose epidemic, so they can bring community leaders and residents together to find solutions," said Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, M.D., foundation CEO.

Erie County's ranking for health factors, which determine a person's health, also fell from 56th in 2016 to 60th in 2017. The biggest drop was in clinical care, where the county's ranking slid from 14th or 22nd even though most measurements improved, including the rate of primary care physicians to patients.

That means other Pennsylvania counties saw bigger improvements, Berringer said.

"It's more important for us to see that the county is trending in the right way," Barringer said. "What we see in this report indicates that we are trending in the right way."

Valerie Bukowski, an epidemiologist for the health department, pointed to decreases in the county's percentage of adult smokers (from 22 percent in the 2016 report to 20 percent in the 2017 report) and percentage of residents who are physically inactive (from 26 percent to 24 percent).

"We also saw alcohol-impaired driving deaths decline from 39 percent (of all fatal accidents) to 33 percent," Bukowski said.

Crawford County saw its health outcomes ranking improve from 54th in 2016 to 48th in 2017, while its health factors ranking dropped from 35th to 50th.

David Bruce can be reached at 870-1736 or by email. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/ETNbruce.