Study: Saratoga County healthy
Saratoga named the healthiest county in New York state again
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. » For the second straight year, Saratoga County earned the title as healthiest county in New York state following a study done by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin’s Population Institute.
Kitty Jerome, director of coaching and outreach, and Jerry Spegman, community coach, work for the Action Center at the County Health Rankings and Roadmaps. They presented their findings Thursday afternoon at the National Museum of Dance to various health professionals across the county.
“Our rankings look at a multitude of factors. I think [they have] 35 separate things that we look at every year that range from the availability of good hospitals and medical facilities down to — and perhaps more importantly — good schools,
good jobs, good transportation systems,” said Spegman. “A lot of health is a function of the socioeconomic factors that we rank on. We also rank on the health behaviors of individuals: Do people eat too much? Smoke too much? Drink too much? Do they get exercise? So it is a broad look at health and we look at all of these factors.”
In 2014, the Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce implemented a health and wellness program.
“We just decided to try to put the health back in the health, history and horses,” said program chair Susan Halstead. “We have a lot of wonderful, healthy opportunities in our county, and we decided we wanted to make it a goal to try and gain recognition as being a healthy place to live, work and play.”
In 2014 the county ranked fifth among the 62 counties in New York state.
“The trick is going to be to keep staying at number 1, and our real goal is to try and gain national attention as being one of the healthiest places to live, work and play,” said Halstead. “We have state parks, we have lakes, we have mountains, we have bike trails. People want to live in a place that offers all of these healthy options and we want to be that place and we’re working really hard and doing whatever we can make to make that happen.”
In terms of future health prospects, however, the county ranks third.
“It’s obviously a very strong rank, but it is a tick in the wrong direction, so that is simply a reminder to local residents, decision makers, community activists that there maybe some factors that you need to pay attention to,” said Spegman. “There maybe some things you need to look at in order to make sure you stay on a good, healthy track.”
Spegman said third great.
“To some extent you wouldn’t blame a county for resting on its laurels, but I think that the thing to do is to look at those 30-plus individuals indicators and figure out which among those are most problematic. For example, excessive drinking happens to stand out in the wrong direction,” said Spegman. “It’s a real eye opener when you look down at the indictors because almost all of the indictors are better, for the most part, than the New York state average, and some of them are very competitive with the absolute best numbers in the country. Excessive drinking is an exception, so that would tell you that one way to address that number three ranking is to zero in on that measure.”
The ranking includes research by CDC, the U.S Department of Agriculture and Dartmouth College.
When the Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce began the healthy initiative, Adirondack Trust Company and BlueShield played a major role in sponsoring it.
BlueShield helps the various events and health initiatives the county sponsors.
“We’ve been able to be behind that and help push forward with our resources and our program to help kind of supplement it,” said Matt Zerr, manager of the wellness programs.
BlueShield is pleased with how successful the programs have been, leading to the healthiest county in New York state.
“Some of these things directly align with what we’ve been able to achieve with this initiative, so we’re very excited and proud to be apart of it,” said Zerr.