County Health Rankings & Roadmaps Working Paper - March 2024

Since 2010, CHR&R has provided an easy-to-use snapshot of county health based on a model of population health, including: • Health Outcomes—based on an equal weighting of Length of Life and Quality of Life, and • Health Factors—based on weighted scores of four factors: Health Behaviors, Clinical Care, Social and Economic Factors, and the Physical Environment. [...] Summary measures of population health are important to assess, prioritize and improve the health of communities, and therefore must be generated with attention to responsible use of data and transparency in methods. [...] The centroid of each cluster is then moved to the average of the data in the cluster and the process is repeated until no data points change groups. [...] Changes to race categories: The census population estimates follow the 1997 OMB standards and there is currently no guidance for the construction of bridged-race population estimates compatible with the 2020 census methods of collection and coding for race and ethnicity data. [...] Proposed methods changes affecting a subset of CHR&R measures Categorization of race data The data infrastructure changes impacting the race categories available in population estimations offers CHR&R an opportunity to reevaluate our approach to data disaggregation and refocus our efforts to increase the visibility of structural racism and its effects.