Construction methods of America,s health rankings and county health rankings: Implications for China / 中国卫生政策研究

ABSTRACT

This review summarised and compared the contents and methods of America,s Health Rankings (AHR)and the County Health Rankings(CHR)in the United States by using literature review.AHR and CHR are the currently widely used population health assessment index ranking systems in the United States,respectively,which provided an analysis of population health on a state-by-state basis and a county-by-county basis by evaluating a histori-cal and comprehensive set of health outcomes and health determinants data to determine the health benchmarks and state/county rankings.The selection criteria of each indicator take into account of reliability, availability, stability, and intervention.The determination of weights of each indicator took into considerations the literature review,a histori-cal perspective,weights used by other rankings,internal analyses of the variation in outcomes explained by each factor, and pragmatic issues involving communications and stakeholder engagement.By comparison, it was found that AHR and CHR have a higher level of accuracy in the classification as they are well -defined by population demographics and geography respectively.The evaluation of health cities and health villages and towns in China is more complicated. There are few studies on village and town health rankings systems.This article reviewed the evaluation methods of AHR and CHR with a view to providing a reference for research on the evaluation system of City Health Rankings and the Village and Town Health Rankings in China.