ZIP Code

Alaska: ZIP Code Common Cities County 99540 Indian, Anchorage Anchorage Borough 99545 Kongiganak Bethel Census Area 99546 Adak Aleutians West Census Area 99547 Atka Aleutians West Census Area 99548 Chignik Lake, Chignik Lake and Peninsula Borough 99549 Port Heiden, King Salmon Lake and Peninsula Borough 99550 Port Lions Kodiak Island Borough 99551 Akiachak Bethel Census Area 99552 Akiak Bethel Census Area 99553 Akutan Aleutians East Borough 99554 Alakanuk Wade Hampton Census Area 99555 Aleknagik Dillingham Census Area

Data on health and social determinants are widely available at the county level. However, as geographic units, counties often are too large to effectively identify and pinpoint population health challenges to inform targeted community health improvement interventions. As a result, increased attention is being given to geographic variation in health at the sub-county level.
The Affordable Care Act expanded emphasis on population health, transitioning the model of health care beyond the hospital's "four walls" and into communities where patients live, work, learn and play. As a result, providers are increasingly focusing on upstream social, environmental and contextual determinants of health that often result in poor physical and emotional downstream health outcomes.
The concept of an individual's ZIP code being a more powerful predictor of health than their genetic code is gaining acceptance among the medical community. The focus on population health also is leading to an increased demand for meaningful community-based health and social factors data. The shift from volume to value is expected to continue; and as a result, the demand for population health data is expected to grow.
Community Health Needs Assessments are perhaps the most common strategy hospitals use to identify the upstream clinical and social factors affecting downstream health outcomes in their service areas. CHNAs provide hospitals an opportunity to identify, form and strengthen relationships with other community stakeholders for the purpose of improving population health. The assessments are based in part on the evaluation of data that identify pressing health and social factors, such as rates of chronic disease and poverty that contribute to community vibrancy. Oftentimes, a common barrier to the successful identification of a community's most acute need is the lack of geographic data granular enough to identify localized areas in most need of intervention. Typically, health-related data are only available at the county level which, across 105 Kansas counties, range in population size from more than 600,000 in Johnson County County Health Rankings and Roadmaps offers a robust set of measures and data on social, environmental and clinical health factors for counties with sufficient data across the U.S. The data are gathered from multiple sources and grouped into two domains -health factors and health outcomes. All health factors and health outcomes measures are standardized within each state, weighted, and then converted into indices to rank each county for comparative purposes within the same state. The population health model underlying the County Health Rankings and Roadmaps measurement construct suggests that local policies and programs influence health factors within populations, such as rates of behavioral characteristics and socioeconomic conditions. These, in turn, result in differences in health outcomes, which are measured by mortality and morbidity, or how long and how well individuals live.
In support of community health improvement efforts, the Kansas Health Institute annually produces individual county profiles that include a five-year trend of County Health Rankings data and the measures with the greatest impact on the rankings in each county. The 2022 county health profiles are available on KHI's webpage.
The lack of availability of health data at the sub-county level reduces opportunities to target scarce interventional resources to communities with the greatest need. A common concern for hospitals is basing their CHNAs solely on county-level data because in smaller communities, county-level data may be less likely to produce measurable differences following a community health improvement intervention.
With these issues in mind, the Kansas Hospital Association has worked to expand the availability of subcounty-level community health data to improve health outcomes in Kansas by informing health improvement initiatives and the targeted allocation of scarce population health resources.  (Figure 3).
Overall health rankings were calculated with the mean index scores of the health factors and health outcomes domains. The combined rankings featured the strongest agreement and linear association between the 2021 County Health Rankings and Roadmaps and reapportioned 2019-2021 ZIP Health Rankings data with a correlation coefficient of 0.67, 36.5 percent of counties being ranked in the same quintile and 76.9 percent ranked within one quintile ( Figure 3). Figure 4 shows the overall ZIP health rankings for 2019-2021 distributed by quintiles for 667 Kansas ZIP codes with sufficient data during the study period.
Location has a profound impact on health. The ability to examine targeted health data for a specific county, and the ZIP Codes contained therein, enables health care providers and other community stakeholders to identify issues and take action to help create and sustain a healthier Kansas.
The Kansas ZIP Health Rankings data are designed to facilitate the exploration of unique hyperlocal health data for a better understanding of the factors influencing outcomes across Kansas communities. Table 1 contains the five healthiest and least-healthy ZIP codes identified by the Kansas ZIP Health Rankings Project.
For additional information on the Kansas ZIP Health Rankings data, contact Sally Othmer at sothmer@kha-net.org.

Conclusion
Source: County Health Rankings and Roadmaps and Kansas Hospital Association, 2022