Why is Otsego County ranked 39th? The overall ranking is an average of several categories. Otesgo county was ranked 21st for mortality and 52nd for morbidity. Mortality is a measure of premature death and morbidity is a measurement of how healthy people feel. The graph below shows mortality in Otsego County compared to New York State and the United States. In this regard Otsego County is below the national average (a good thing) and roughly average for New York.
When it came to a measurement health behaviors Otsego County was ranked 21st. There were two factors in particular that were above average (not a good thing) when compared to the other counties. Of the adults in Otsego County 21% self reported that they smoke. Also the prevalence of obesity is 28% ( a BMI greater than 30).
Clinical Care was another category used to describe the health of the county. According to the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care, Otsego County has 71 preventable hospital stays per 1000 patients. This is a measure of patients admitted to the hospital that could have been treated in an outpatient setting. The average number of preventable hospital stays for New York State per 1000 patients was 69. Although Otsego County is unremarkable in this aspect, there is definitely room for improvement.
There are a number of factors (such as socioeconomic status), that I did not evaluate in this post. However, if you would like to see the ranking of Otsego County or the sources used please follow the links.
If you have been reading this blog and have never visited Otsego County, let me take a moment to give a brief history. Otsego County was formed on February 16, 1791 after being split from Montgomery County. Cooperstown became the county seat. The largest city in the county is Oneonta (population 13,901).
I found it interesting that Otsego County does not seem to suffer from the same primary care physician shortage that many other rural counties face. The ratio of the total population to primary care providers is 624:1, which exceeds the 90th percentile for the nation. I am surprised that, despite this favorable ratio, Otsego County ranks so poorly in regards to overall morbidity. It would be interesting to see statistics regarding the distribution of physicians throughout the county. Perhaps, if physicians are disproportionately concentrated in areas such as Cooperstown or Oneonta, residents in other parts of the county have less access to their services.
ReplyDeleteMichael,
DeleteIt is true that Otesgo county has a high ratio of primary care providers. This is in part due to the Basset Health care network which serves all of Otsego county and parts of the surrounding seven counties (including madison). Despite this, it is still considered by the US department of health to be a primary care health professional shortage area. The main reason for this designation is because of the low population density. The simplest way to describe it would be to say it is a rural county.
I also want to point out that access to care does not translate directly into reduced morbidity.
It would be interesting to look into the quality of the health systems, and to see if there are statistics and patterns within the data, that might prove to be predictive regarding patient morbidity and mortality. Perhaps it's not only that people receive care, but the quality of the care that they receive which is correlated with better or worse outcomes.
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