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Florida's Health
How healthy is Florida?
Pinellas County
Too Many Injuries
Population: 970,637
Compared to Florida, Pinellas is older. It has the smallest share of the population under 18 among major Florida counties and the highest share of seniors. It also has, among major counties, the lowest share of AfricanAmericans and Hispanics — by far. Median household income is $900 below the state level, and health-care costs are about $400 higher.
The Good News
- Pinellas has more adults with health insurance than the state average (but is slightly worse than the state level for insuring kids).
- It has had success in reducing low birth weight babies and black and Hispanic infant mortality and the percentage of adults overweight or obese.
- Pinellas ranks best among major Florida counties in clinical care — a measure of insurance coverage, disease monitoring and doctors relative to population.
- Access to exercise opportunities is good.
- All students in Title I elementary schools get dental sealants.
- The county’s Health in All Policies initiative makes all local governments factor health into their decisionmaking. The project is funded by the Foundation for a Healthy St. Petersburg.
The Bad News
- The county is in the bottom quarter among Florida counties in immunizations and also scores poorly in high school drinking, marijuana use and STDs.
- It’s much worse than the state average in avoiding premature deaths. It has a much higher rate of injury deaths than the state.
- Chlamydia rates are rising.
- The rate of death from drug overdose is higher than any other major county but Palm Beach. The county has the highest suicide rate among the state’s biggest counties.
Duval County
Florida’s Sickest Urban County
Population: 937,934
Duval’s population is younger than Florida’s overall and far less Hispanic than the rest of the state but has nearly twice the share of black population as the state average.
The Good News
- Duval has more dentists and more hospital beds per capita than the averages for Florida.
- Among major Florida counties, it has the lowest rate of uninsured, below the state average. It’s tied with several other urban counties for the lowest rate of uninsured kids, and among the larger counties it has the lowest percentage (49%) of kids on free or reduced-price lunch.
The Bad News
- Among the major counties, it has the worst rankings in health outcomes and factors — the highest rate of premature death, child mortality and infant mortality.
- Duval’s rate of drug overdose deaths is 42.5 per 100,000 people in 2016, nearly double the state’s 23.9%. Duval ranks 38th among Florida counties in how healthy people feel and 41st in health behaviors such as drinking and smoking and obesity.
- It has the highest homicide rate in Florida. It’s in the lowest quartile among all Florida counties for school safety and for self-inflicted injuries in teens, for immunizations, for middle and high school-age physical activity, STDs, youth injuries in traffic wrecks and chlamydia in young women.
- It has the worst air quality among major Florida counties.
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