MORGANTOWN — When it comes to overall health statistics, Monongalia County is a standout in West Virginia, jumping from third to second — behind only Jefferson County — in the latest health rankings from the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation.
While Dr. Lee Smith, executive director of the Monongalia County Health Department (MCHD) and the county’s chief medical officer, said he’s glad to see the county move up a spot, the numbers show West Virginia doesn’t set an overly high bar and Monongalia County still has a good deal of work to do in many areas to get on par with national leaders.
“Of course we’re happy to see that we’re continuing to make some slow progress, but you can see that we still have plenty of room to improve,” Smith said, later adding “You can’t really say Monongalia County is the greatest place in the world when you look at some of the numbers across the state, because what you see is that really we’re kind of the best of the worst.”
The rankings are based on a model designed to show how a communities’ policies and programs impact various health factors. The factors are broken into four categories, which are weighted based on each’s impact on overall health outcomes.
While Monongalia County ranks near the top statewide in most categories, there are some in which it falls behind the its West Virginia neighbors, including: Food environment index, excessive drinking, sexually transmitted diseases, diabetes monitoring, air pollution, housing availability and income inequality.
The rankings for every state and county can be viewed at countyhealthrankings.org.
