County Health Burden

County-level health burden indicators. All values are age-adjusted prevalence estimates from the sources listed in the Data Sources section below.

Controls

Choropleth

County ranking

Data table

Measure correlations

Data provenance

Data Sources

CDC PLACES: Local Data for Better Health — County Data All health burden measures (DIABETES, OBESITY, BPHIGH, ACCESS2, MHLTH, PHLTH, CHECKUP, CASTHMA) are age-adjusted prevalence estimates derived from Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) survey responses, modeled to the county level by CDC's Division of Population Health. Dataset: data.cdc.gov › swc5-untb Methodology: cdc.gov/places The release and retrieval time this deployment is serving are in the provenance panel above, read from the API rather than written here.

HRSA Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSA) Geographic HPSA designations indicate counties or sub-county areas with insufficient health professional supply relative to population need. Scores range from 0–26 (Primary Care, Dental) or 0–25 (Mental Health); higher scores indicate greater shortage and higher prioritization for federal resources (National Health Service Corps, etc.). Dataset: data.hrsa.gov › shortage-areas

U.S. Census Bureau — American Community Survey (ACS) 5-Year Estimates Poverty rate and median household income are 5-year period estimates from the ACS, which pools survey responses over a 5-year window to produce reliable county-level estimates. Dataset: census.gov/programs-surveys/acs

CDC/ATSDR Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) Social vulnerability is a composite percentile ranking of 16 census-derived variables grouped into four themes: socioeconomic status, household characteristics, racial and ethnic minority status, and housing type & transportation. Atlas exposes the overall rank and the four theme ranks independently, plus the count of variables flagged unreliable, because a composite can hide which mechanism drives a county's vulnerability. Ranks are on a 0–1 scale relative to all U.S. counties (higher = more vulnerable), are not percentages, and are not comparable across SVI releases — so the release and its 2018–2022 ACS 5-year input period are carried with every value. Dataset: atsdr.cdc.gov › svi

BLS LAUS — local labor force (latest month) The Bureau of Labor Statistics' monthly Local Area Unemployment Statistics give the county unemployment rate together with the levels it is calculated from — unemployed persons, employed persons, and the labor force — so the rate is never shown without its denominator (unemployed + employed = labor force). The newest points are published Preliminary and are revised, so each value carries its revision status and its month; counties are not seasonally adjusted (BLS adjusts state and national series only). Dataset: bls.gov › lau

USDA ERS Food Access Research Atlas (FARA) — county rollup Food access is measured at the census-tract level: a tract is low-income, low-access (LILA) when it is low income and a share of its residents lives beyond a distance threshold from the nearest qualifying food retailer. Atlas keeps the tract detail and shows only the labelled county rollup here: the count and share of LILA tracts, and the summed low-access population with its recomputed share. Counts are summed from tract values and shares are recomputed from the summed numerator and denominator — never averaged — and low access is reported as a count of tracts, not a county-level determination. FARA publishes two incomparable editions: the 2025 SNAP-authorized Retailer Access Map (2020 tracts, all SNAP-authorized retailers, straight-line and driving distances) and the 2019 Large Retailer Access Map (2010 tracts, large retailers only, straight-line only). The county figures here use the current edition (SRAM 2025) by straight-line distance, and the edition, distance method, and tract vintage travel with every value — the methods disagree materially (the 1-and-10-mile LILA count is 2,356 tracts by straight-line and 6,301 by driving), so a value is never read without them. Dataset: ers.usda.gov › food-access-research-atlas

County boundaries Census TIGER/Line Cartographic Boundary Files (500k resolution). Dataset: census.gov/geographies/mapping-files