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United Health Foundation's America's Health Rankings, which ranks the states from 'least healthy' to 'healthiest,' receives wide press coverage and promotes discussion of public health issues. The University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute used the United Health Foundation's model to develop the Wisconsin County Health Rankings ('Health Rankings') from existing county-level data. The institute first released the rankings in 2004. A survey of the Wisconsin county health officers indicated that they intend to use the rankings for needs assessment, program planning, and discussion with county health boards. The institute implemented many of the health officers' suggestions for improvement of the rankings in subsequent editions. The methods employed to create the rankings should be applicable in other states. (Am J Public Health. 2008;98:209-212. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2006.092981)

Wisconsin residents age 25-44 years represent an important life stage and a relatively large portion of the Wisconsin population. Focusing on the most common causes of death among Wisconsin adults 25-44 years old, we assess progress in reducing mortality, describe disparities between subgroups of this age group, and identify areas for improvement. Mortality trends and leading causes of death were examined from 1980-1999 by querying the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's WONDER database using the methods established by the National Vital Statistics System. Mortality rates in Wisconsin declined slightly (5%) during this time, and are consistently lower than the national rates. Mortality due to unintentional injury, cancer, and coronary heart disease declined in this age group. However, this decline was in contrast to increases in mortality due to suicide, homicide, and HIV--all preventable causes of death. Finally, disparities in mortality rates increased between black and white Wisconsin residents. In order to make progress in this age group, public health efforts need to focus on effective strategies to prevent HIV and violence.

Purpose: To assess progress towards 2 overarching public health goals--improvement in length of life and reducing health disparities., Methods: Age specific mortality rates in Wisconsin from 1980 to 2000 were obtained from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention WONDER database. Rates for each age group were gathered for the entire Wisconsin population and for black and white subgroups. Trends in mortality rates were plotted, change in mortality rates was estimated, and the number of "lives saved" annually from 1980-1984 to 1996-2000 was calculated. In addition, black vs white rate ratios were calculated at both the beginning and the end of the time period to determine trends in black-white mortality disparities., Results: Mortality is decreasing in Wisconsin in every age group. The largest relative improvements in mortality rates occurred among infants <1 year (-30%), children 1-14 years (-27%), and adults 45-64 years (-23%). Comparatively little progress was seen among adults 25-44 years (-5%) and those 85 years and older (-0.5%). Black/white disparities increased in every age group. During 1996-2000, approximately 5000 fewer deaths occurred each year than expected based on mortality rates from 1980-1984., Conclusion: Despite progress towards increasing length of life, progress towards eliminating disparities was not seen over the 1980 to 2000 time period.