Ottawa again ranks among healthiest counties in Michigan

OTTAWA COUNTY — Ottawa County has once again been ranked among the healthiest in Michigan in the annual County Health Rankings.

The county finished third of 83 counties in health outcomes and second in health factors in the annual rankings, which evaluate counties nationwide on a multitude of factors.

According to Ottawa County Administrative Health Officer Adeline Hambley, Ottawa County has been a mainstay near the top of the rankings since they began in 2011.

“Ottawa County is the only county in Michigan that has ranked in the top five for health outcomes every year since this was implemented,” Hambley said during an Ottawa County board committee meeting Tuesday, April 18.

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Allegan County also ranked in the top 25 percent of Michigan counties, coming in 19 for health outcomes and 20 for health factors.

The top five counties for health outcomes were Leelanau, Clinton, Ottawa, Livingston and Oakland. For health factors, the top counties were Washtenaw, Ottawa, Oakland, Livingston and Clinton.

Health outcomes take into account two main areas — length of life and quality of life. Length of life measures the years of potential lives lost before age 75 per 100,000 people. Ottawa County came in at 4,500, well below the state average of 7,900. Allegan County’s figure was 6,900.

For quality of life, Ottawa County was better than the state average in each category — percentage of people with poor or fair health, poor physical health days, poor mental health days and low birth weight percentage.

Eleven percent of the county had poor or fair health, while residents averaged 2.9 poor physical health days and 5.1 poor mental health days per month. State averages were 15 percent, 3.3 days and 5.3 days, respectively. Allegan County also beat state averages with 13 percent in poor or fair health, 3.2 poor physical health days and 5.2 poor mental health days.

Counties are also ranked on health factors, a number of areas that can be addressed to improve length of life. These factors include health behaviors, clinical care, social and economic factors and physical environment.

While Ottawa County is above average in many of these categories, Hambley highlighted several opportunities for improvements Tuesday. One area where Ottawa County is worse than average is access to care providers.

The ratio of residents to mental health providers in the county is 450 to 1, with the state average being 320 to 1. For primary care physicians, the ratio is 1,520 to 1, worse than the state average of 1,240 to 1.

Hambley said the figures don’t include physicians working in multiple counties and noted there's significant healthcare infrastructure in neighboring Kent County.

Ottawa County’s air quality is also below average, according to the report. Hambley said this is a known issue, but is difficult to address, as part of the problem lies with the quality of air traveling across Lake Michigan from the Chicago and northwest Indiana areas.

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Allegan County shares Ottawa’s struggle in access to healthcare, with its ratio of residents to mental health providers coming in at 1,030 to 1 and its primary care physician ratio at 4,570 to 1.

Allegan’s access to exercise opportunities — defined as the percentage of residents living near a park or recreation facility — was just 57 percent, well below the state average of 85 percent.

To view full profiles for Ottawa County and Allegan County, visit countyhealthrankings.org.

The high ranking comes as Hambley continues a lawsuit against several Ottawa County commissioners and the board as a whole, claiming they're interfering with her ability to successfully do her job and attempted to remove her from her position improperly in January.

Earlier this week, a Muskegon County judge ordered Hambley couldn't be removed from her position, at least until a trial takes place to dissect some of the arguments made in her lawsuit.

— Contact reporter Mitchell Boatman at mboatman@hollandsentinel.com. Follow him on Twitter @SentinelMitch.

This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Ottawa again ranks among healthiest counties in Michigan