Economic Rankings Maps
Over the course of the Partner Up! for Public Health campaign, we developed a number of color-coded maps to help illustrate the relationship between health status and economic productivity at a local level. For the most part, we divided the state into three tiers for both economics and health, showing the top third of counties in each category in green, the middle tier in yellow, and the bottom tier in red. Our rankings were drawn from two sources. For the economic rankings, we relied on the Georgia Department of Community Affairs’ (DCA) annual Job Tax Credit Rankings. DCA ranks counties based on a formula involving local unemployment rates, local poverty rates, and local per capita income. For our health rankings, we used the annual health outcomes rankings produced Robert Wood Johnson Foundation as part of its annual county health ranking initiative. Those rankings are based on several factors, including premature death rates, low birth weight rates, and the percent of the population reporting being in poor or fair health, among other factors. As part of the campaign, we also developed the Partner Up! for Public Health Power Ratings, which combined the economic and health outcomes rankings, and those ratings are mapped as well.
