MONTICELLO, NY — The national county health rankings were released on March 14, and as has been the case for the past six years, Sullivan County came in next to last place in New York State. The Bronx had the worst health outcomes out of the 62 counties in the state, while Sullivan came in at 61.

Nancy McGraw, director of Sullivan County Public Health Services, repeated an observation made by several others who spoke at news conference about the rankings when she said it was not a surprise that health outcomes in Sullivan had not changed, because to turn the health of the county around takes years of effort and a lot a resources.

She and others, however, said that another measure in the rankings, one called health factors, was good news for Sullivan. The county ranking in that category moved from 57 to 47, which showed there is some improvement.

Nadia Rajsz, a county legislator, and chair of the Health and Family Services Committee, explained the reason for the improved measure. She said, “Our unemployment rate is significantly down to 4.8%; there’s a decrease in adult smoking, down to 18% from more than 23%; there’s a decrease in alcohol-impaired driving deaths; a decrease in preventable hospital stays; an increase in the percentage of people with health insurance; and again, as we all know in Sullivan, we have a clean and healthy physical environment with good air and water quality, and we need to protect that.”

Others who spoke at the news conference and are involved in the effort to improve county health outcomes were county manager Josh Potosek; Jonathan Schiller, chief executive officer of Catskill Regional Medical Center; Rachel Steingart, representing Assemblywoman Aileen Gunther; Nicole Slevin, communications and diversity manager at Cornell Cooperative Extension; Colleen Emery, project coordinator for Sullivan Renaissance; and Sandi Rowland, CEO of the newly-formed nonprofit Sullivan 180.

From the rankings website: “The County Health Rankings & Roadmaps program is a collaboration between the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute. We believe America can become a nation where getting healthy, staying healthy, and making sure our children grow up healthy are top priorities. We have a vision of an America where we all strive together to build a national Culture of Health that enables all in our diverse society to lead healthy lives, now and for generations to come.”