Nassau, Suffolk rank among 10 healthiest counties in NY

Nassau and Suffolk counties are among the 10 healthiest counties in New York, according to a study released Wednesday, although experts say the high rankings mask huge gaps among communities within each county.

Nassau ranked first of the state’s 62 counties in “health factors,” which include areas such as health care access and education levels, and fourth in “health outcomes,” which include rates of premature deaths, “poor or fair health” and low birth weights.

As in past studies, Suffolk ranked lower than Nassau: Eighth in health factors and 10th in health outcomes.  

In last year's report, Nassau ranked first in health factors and second in health outcomes, and Suffolk ranked eighth in health factors and 11th in health outcomes.

The report was compiled by the Princeton, N.J.-based Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a health philanthropy; and the University of Wisconsin Health Population Institute. The annual rankings compile data from the past several years from multiple sources, such as the National Center for Health Statistics.

It’s no surprise that Nassau, with its high median income and educational levels, ranked so high, said Jeff Kraut, executive vice president of strategy and analytics at Northwell Health. People with more education are more likely to have jobs with health insurance and jobs that present fewer risks, he said. During COVID-19, for example, many people working low-wage jobs had no choice but to show up for work in person, while others were able to work remotely, he said.

“About 20% of your health is dependent upon clinical care that you might receive from a doctor, a hospital, wherever you go,” Kraut said. “More of your health is education, employment, income and your healthy behaviors. It stands to reason, if you’re a big tobacco user, you’re going to have more health problems.”

Income, housing and educational attainment differ greatly among Long Island communities, and the neighborhood where you live has a huge effect on how healthy you’re likely to be, said Martine Hackett, an associate professor of health professions at Hofstra University in Hempstead and an expert on health disparities.

“The report definitely presents a picture that is misleading,” she said. “By aggregating all the data, it misrepresents what the actual outcomes are across different racial and ethnic groups and across different ZIP codes.”

Kraut, citing federal data, said the life expectancy in upscale Garden City is 92, while in neighboring Hempstead, with a much lower income and educational level, it is 74.

In some categories, the new report does break down statistics by race and ethnicity. In both counties, rates of premature death, preventable hospital stays, low birthrate and several other areas were far higher among Black residents compared with white, Hispanic and Asian residents.

Sean Clouston, an associate professor of public health at Stony Brook University, said Suffolk’s lower ranking is in part because it has fewer doctors. In Nassau, the ratio of residents to primary care physicians is 700 to 1. In Suffolk, it is 1,390 to 1.

“A lot of people use primary care physicians for that preventive stuff,” he said. “PCPs are where people go to learn about what they should be doing” to stay healthy.

People are less likely to go to the doctor if the distance is long, Clouston said. One reason for fewer physicians in Suffolk could be a desire of some doctors to live closer to New York City, he said.

“We have a lot more preventable hospital stays as well,” Clouston said of Suffolk. “That’s people who are showing up at a hospital to get care instead of going to their primary care physician. It may mean the infrastructure that lets people survive is just not as robust out here, or maybe not as well used.”

By David Olson

david.olson@newsday.com@DavidOlson11

David Olson covers health care. He has worked at Newsday since 2015 and previously covered immigration, multicultural issues and religion at The Press-Enterprise in Southern California.