Escambia County landed in the middle of Alabama rankings of health statistics released this week by a research organization.

The County Health Rankings are a collaboration between the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, and part of the Mobilizing Action Toward Community Health (MATCH) project.

Ruth Harrell, a member of the Coalition for a Healthier Escambia County (CHEC), said the rankings proved there is work yet to be done in the county to improve the overall health of residents.

“We’ve still got some work to do,” Harrell said. “But, we have done some things well.”

Of the 67 Alabama counties, Escambia fell into an average ranking of 32nd place with some areas of attention ranking as high as eighth with others as low as 45th place including health outcomes and health factors.

“We are more interested in the health outcomes,” Harrell said. “The factors are what we need to continue to improve.”

Harrell said the environment may have a significant impact on the overall health of any community, county or state.

“These rankings are a telling statement that it’s hard to be healthy in some cases,” Harrell said. “Environment is such a big part of overall health. The four pillars of the World Health Organization that tell about overall health are environment, lifestyle, heredity and medical services.”

Clinical care availability to residents across the county put the ranking at 36 with a high number of diabetes and mammography screenings being conducted in the county. Furthermore, the ratio of primary healthcare providers to residents is 1:1,294 with 18 percent of the adult population being uninsured.

Harrell said one of the major issues in the county is the increasing need for physicians.

“We are in need of more primary care physicians in all three towns in the county,” Harrell said. “Even if we had a larger number of people insured, that doesn’t mean we have universal access to health care.”

Harrell said the ranking of 36th in the state with health care availability may be in part, due to the increased number of screenings for a variety of illnesses.

“We have increased the number of screenings seen in the county for diabetes,” Harrell said. “Also, mammography screenings are also increasing.”

She said those increased screenings may be representative of more attention being given to preventative care.

Some of the improvements seen as a result of the rankings could be contributed to the initiative of the CHEC, Harrell said.

“Some health behaviors have changed,” Harrell said. “We have done a lot of different things through the Coalition. We have no smoking ordinances in place that makes Escambia County smoke-free. The survey still shows that 24 percent of adults still smoke compared to the national average of 15 percent. We’re not quite where we want to be, but we’re getting there.”

With 67 percent of those surveyed saying they have access to healthy food outlets, Harrell said those numbers need to see a change.

“One of the questions asked was how many times a week do you serve your family fast foods?” Harrell said. “The more we can get the community mobile and focusing on the importance of fresh fruits and vegetables, the better things will be.”

Harrell said the increases in community gardens may play a big role in bringing the need for more vegetables in the diet into focus throughout the county.

“The community garden at Ft. Crawford in East Brewton is fabulous,” Harrell said. “We need to continue to improve access to healthy foods and exercise outlets. There is a move underway now to resurrect the farmers markets in the communities. The Community gardens are a way to help revitalize that and put more of a focus on healthy eating habits.”

Social and economic factors brought the county’s ranking in at 45th place. With 70 percent of the population in the county graduated high school with 42 percent going on to get some college training. The unemployment rate in the county is 12.4 percent while the state average (at the time of research) was at 10.1 percent. When the study turned to children, 32 percent are considered to be in poverty with 41 percent of homes in the county being single-parent households.

To view more data on the rankings, visit the CHR Web site at www.countyhealthrankings.org.