ArticlePrevention science : the official journal of the Society for Prevention Research2013
How reliable are county and regional health rankings?
Article in Prevention science : the official journal of the Society for Prevention Research, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed.
- Health differences between rural and non-rural Texas counties based on 2023 County Health Rankings.BMC health services research · 2025Article
- [Ranking of immunization programs in Latin America, 2019Ranking dos programas de imunização na América Latina, 2019].Revista panamericana de salud publica = Pan American journal of public health · 2022Article
- Association of Chronic Lower Respiratory Disease With County Health Disparities in New York State.JAMA network open · 2021Observational
- Value-based focused global population health management.Journal of gastrointestinal oncology · 2021Review
- State Prevalence and Ranks of Adolescent Substance Use: Implications for Cancer Prevention.Preventing chronic disease · 2018Article
- Comparing percentages and ranks of adolescent weight-related outcomes among U.S. states: Implications for intervention development.Preventive medicine · 2017Article
- Measuring health indicators and allocating health resources: a DEA-based approach.Health care management science · 2017Article
- Relationships between County Health Rankings and child overweight and obesity prevalence: a serial cross-sectional analysis.BMC public health · 2016Article
- Just How Useful Are Health Rankings?Health services research · 2015Article
- County Health Rankings and the Cult of the Imperfect.Health services research · 2015Article
- Modeling Area-Level Health Rankings.Health services research · 2015Article
- The County Health Rankings: rationale and methods.Population health metrics · 2015Article
- Ranking States on Coverage of Cancer-Preventing Vaccines Among Adolescents: The Influence of Imprecision.Public health reports (Washington, D.C. : 1974)Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Surveillance system indicators of morbidity, mortality, or behaviors are used to provide regional information for ever-smaller areas, most recently for ranking counties. These rankings are thought to provide information about the relative standing of regions and provide information about problem areas and the success of programs. We investigate the ability of such rankings to reliably assess health. We assess the reliability of several ranked health indices used at the county level and the consistency of an index's quality across different states. Reliability is assessed using an index of reliability, simulations, and the ability of an index to consistently identify the top 10 % (worst) counties within a state. There is marked variability across measures to provide consistent ranks, across states, and, many times, across states for a particular measure. A few health measures do consistently well, e.g., Teen Birth, Chlamydia, and Years of Potential Life Lost rates. While a few health rankings appear worthy of use for policy and in the identification of local problems, in general, they are not consistent across regions.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.