Is Lake County unhealthy?

At Bodies in Balance in Two Harbors, business is booming. Since turning into a 24-hour fitness club, membership has doubled, office operations manager Laura Kaminski said.

“People here are very much interested in having a place to come and work out,” she said.

Which makes it all the more surprising that a study released today says Lake County, with a population of about 10,600, is the unhealthiest county in Minnesota.

The study, conducted by the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute and funded by the Robert Wood Johnson foundation, used data from organizations such as Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Census and the FBI to measure what was labeled “Health Outcomes,” including early death, how people are feeling and how many babies are born at a low birth weight, said Julie Willems Van Dijk, one of the authors of the study.

The study also looked at factors such as obesity, alcohol and tobacco use, and exercise and diet habits.

“The data we have is a snapshot of a community,” Willems Van Dijk said.

County Commissioner Paul Bergman said he was shocked to hear about the bottom ranking, but he took comfort in the fact that Lake County finished much higher in another part of the rankings. In the category of Health Factors — indicators that predict better health in the future, including quality of clinical care, health behaviors, and social and economic factors — Lake County’s ranking of 16 out of 85 was the highest in Northeastern Minnesota.

In the category of Health Outcomes (how healthy a county is), St. Louis County was ranked at 63 out of 85, while Carlton was 67. The category of Health Factors (indicators of the county’s future health) found St. Louis County at 38 and Carlton County at 47.

The healthiest county in Minnesota was Jackson in the south-central part of the state, while Olmsted County, where Rochester is located, was ranked No. 1 for Health Factors.

Out of 72 counties in Wisconsin, Douglas County finished 53 and 52, respectively, in Health Outcomes and Health Factors.

Researchers compiled data on nearly all of the 3,100-plus counties in the U.S., Willems Van Dijk said, and it was unusual for a county to rank poorly in current health and highly in indicators of future health — as Lake County did.

“It tells me that there’s some encouraging signs going on in Lake County,” Willems Van Dijk said. “There are good things that would impact premature death and disease factors.”

Lake County Health and Human Services Director Dennis Henkel said he was expecting “bottom half” given an aging population in the county.

The median age in Lake County at the time of the 2000 Census was 42.9, compared to 34.4 statewide.

But Henkel took issue with some of the data used. Measurements of morbidity included stats on low birth weights and phone poll data asking people how they were feeling, conducted by the CDC over several years.

Henkel said Lake County has had a “number of multiple births,” meaning each twin or triplet is naturally lower in birth weight.

Even on the good-news side, Henkel said there are factors that might not give the “whole picture.”

Under Health Factors, the tally for the numbers of liquor stores included resorts and other places with access to alcohol. “This is a tourism area,” Henkel said, and much of the liquor sold is to non-residents.

But Henkel said the rankings are a good way to get a discussion going on health care in the county.

One of the priorities in Henkel’s department is to continue working with the Statewide Health Improvement Program, which includes finding ways to make cities in the county friendlier to people seeking exercise and offering healthful food options in schools. Henkel said he also is getting a good response to the county program that brings nurses to homes of those who are expecting a baby or have a newborn at home.

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