Mar 20, 2013 2 min read

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — How healthy you are is strongly linked to where in Pennsylvania you live, according to the results of a new county-by-county study that found Philadelphia the least healthy county and neighboring Chester the healthiest in the state.

The report released Wednesday by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute evaluated Pennsylvania’s 67 counties on more than two dozen factors the researchers believe influence a person’s health. They include individual healthy behavior markers such as obesity and smoking, as well as social and economic factors like education, violent crime, health care access, family support, education and unemployment.

Philadelphia has starkly higher rates than its four adjacent counties of sexually transmitted diseases, teen births, uninsured residents, smoking and obesity rates, high school dropouts, violent crime and single-parent homes. The Philadelphia-Chester tale of two counties — one urban, one suburban — is not uncommon, said Dr. James Marks of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

“It turns out that social and economic factors are the most powerful (health) predictors,” Marks said. “We can’t treat our way out of our high health care costs … Where and how people live, learn, work and play greatly affects their health.”

Union, Centre, Cumberland and Snyder counties in central Pennsylvania round out the top five healthiest. The report ranks the five unhealthiest counties as Philadelphia, Fayette, Greene, Sullivan and Forest, which fare worse than state averages in child poverty, single-parent households, obesity and a sedentary lifestyle.