Greenville County has been named as the third healthiest county on SmartAsset’s top 10 Healthiest Places in South Carolina. Greenville has appeared on the list since the study’s inception in 2017.
“Our study aims to find the healthiest places in the country,” said SmartAsset spokesperson Steve Sabato. “An individual’s health is key to assessing life expectancy, which is the ultimate determinant of the price one pays for life insurance. To find America’s healthiest places we considered three factors: length of life, health behaviors and health care access.”
In order to determine the rankings, SmartAsset first looked at premature death, which is potential life lost before age 75 per 100,000 residents in each county. Places with the lowest rates of premature death had the highest length of life index values.
Then the study explored health behaviors including the percentage of adults who are current smokers, would be classified as obese and would be considered binge or heavy drinkers. Those conducting the study indexed each behavior on a scale of zero to 100 and took the weighted average, then indexed the final number to create the index value, Sababo said.
In addition, the study explored access to health care and its impact on health outcomes by looking at the number of primary care physicians per 100,000 residents and the percentage of the population under 65 without health insurance. Based on the data, these two areas were indexed on a scale of zero to 100, and the weighted average led to the final number for the healthcare section.
Once all three indexes were created, SmartAsset determined the top 10 counties by weighing 50 percent of the results on the length of life, 30 percent health behaviors and 20 percent on access to health care.
Joining Greenville county on the list are Beaufort, Charleston, Richland, Dorchester, York, Lexington, Saluda, Lancaster and Oconee counties.
For more information, visit www.smartasset.com/life-insurance/life-insurance-quotes#southcarolina.
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