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Texas Health Rankings: A Local And National Snapshot

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Two new health rankings show how Texas fares county by county as well as on the national stage.

Collin County and Denton County are ranked second and third in the entire state for good health by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Researchers surveyed 232 Texas counties on everything from insurance to adult smoking rates to diabetic screenings. Only Williamson County near Austin ranked higher.

Tarrant County was 37th and Dallas County claimed the 67th spot. Coming in dead last was Polk County in East Texas where 23% of the population is reportedly in poor or fair health and almost a third of people are uninsured.

For a look at the entire state, click here.

And a new well-being report gives Texas an average ranking nationally, 27th out of 50. The Dallas, Fort Worth area took the bronze medal for metro areas within the state. The Gallup-Healthways index took into account things like emotional and physical health, as well as access to essentials like clean water and health insurance.

Austin and El Paso got the top two spots in the state. Beaumont was last on the Texas list and scored abysmally nationwide: 186 out of 189 areas surveyed. DFW was ranked 61st in the U.S.

Click here for the entire Texas report.

Courtney Collins has been working as a broadcast journalist since graduating from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in 2004. Before coming to KERA in 2011, Courtney worked as a reporter for NPR member station WAMU in Washington D.C. While there she covered daily news and reported for the station’s weekly news magazine, Metro Connection.