The County Health Rankings are the first to rank overall health in all 50 states – more than 3,000 total – by using a standard formula to measure how healthy people are and how long they live.

Researchers used five measures to assess the level of overall health or “health outcomes” for Indiana by county: the rate of people dying before age 75, the percent of people who report being in fair or poor health, the number of days people report being in poor physical and poor mental health, and the rate of low-birth weight infants.

The report then looks at factors that affect people’s health within four categories: health behavior, clinical care, social and economic factors, and physical environment. Among the many health factors, they looked at adult smoking, access to care, unemployment rate, adult obesity, teen birth rate, access to healthy foods, and motor vehicle death rate.

The County Health Rankings report can be found at http://www.countyhealthrankings.org/.