Richmond County is among the bottom 10 percent of the state in the health of its citizens, even though environmental conditions are well above average, according to a new study released Wednesday.

Richmond County Health Director Dr. Tommy Jarrell informed the county health board Tuesday night of the preliminary findings of the study conducted by the University of Wisconsin and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

It ranks each county in the country using information collected from each, and reinforces data Richmond County health officials have already seen in other studies.

“They’re looking at things in a county, such as the environment,” Jarrell said. “From what I’ve seen so far, we look good when you look at environmental factors, but as far as our health data ... we’re not going to rank very well when you look at how people’s lifestyles are or how many people die prematurely when you compare it to the rest of the state. We already knew that.”

The study examined health factors, things that affect people’s health, as well as health outcomes, what happens to people as a result of their health factors.

Richmond County ranks 87th out of the state’s 100 counties in mortality, with the premature death rate exceeding North Carolina’s average by more than a third. It ranks 92nd in morbidity, or poor health.

The county also ranked 81st in health behaviors, such as smoking, obesity and motor vehicle crashes, and 64th in clinical care, or the level of health care resources available to residents.

All this while the county ranks 17th in the state for having the best environmental factors for public health, i.e. a lack of pollution.

However, Jarrell pointed out that one of the most important factors in the health of Richmond County citizens relates to social and economic factors.

These factors include such figures as high school graduation rate, unemployment, poverty and single parent households.

The county ranks 92nd out of 100 in this category.

“When you look at the economic health of a county and that county’s health outcomes, I believe there is a very big correlation between the two,” Jarrell said.

He explained he’d compared a map of North Carolina counties separated according to levels of economic distress and a map of the county-by-county health rankings and found a striking similarity.

“It’s almost as if you can lay one map over top of the other,” Jarrell said. “It’s almost like the Tier 1 counties are very similar to the counties with the highest risk factors for health.”

“I think it’s not only that you have poorer people, but you also have fewer resources to help those poor people,” Jarrell said. “You’ve got more people who are uninsured, you’ve got more people living in poverty, you’ve got higher unemployment rates. A lot of times you have people who are less educated - there are just so many factors you can look at to explain why this is.”

Employment rates and health insurance figure greatly into this equation, Jarrell said.

“You can afford healthcare if you have insurance, but if you don’t work and don’t have insurance you can’t afford healthcare,” Jarrell explained. “I don’t care who you are.”

Also at the meeting:

The health board appointed a three-person budget committee to work on the annual budget for 2010-11.

Serving on this committee will be Health Board Chairman Thad Ussery and members Sam Aiken and Dr. Donald Covington.

The board also reviewed the progress of the annual budget for 2009-10, finding it is approximately 58 percent spent.

Staff Writer Philip D. Brown can be reached at (910) 997-3111 ext. 32, or by e-mail at pbrown@yourdailyjournal.com.