photo by: Adobe Stock

Douglas County does better than the national average on unemployment, child poverty, flu vaccinations and more, but it has more work to do on housing issues and income inequality.

That’s according to data from the County Health Rankings & Roadmaps program, led by the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute. It provides data on over 80 health-related factors in counties around the U.S., including housing, education, employment and access to quality health care.

The Kansas Health Institute, which analyzes the rankings and produces its own report on them, held a webinar about the data on Thursday. Kansas Health Institute senior analyst Wyatt Beckman said it’s important to analyze trends of health data in order to guide future work.

“The best way to monitor progress is to get to the underlying measure,” Beckman said. “That’s the best way you can see if your county is improving or failing to improve in a particular measure.”

photo by: County Health Rankings

Douglas County Population Health and Well-being for 2025

The County Health Rankings & Roadmaps program sorts these measurements into two broad categories: “community conditions,” which assesses factors influencing population health and well-being, and “population health and well-being,” which evaluates overall quality of life. Each county in the U.S. is then placed on a scale from least healthy to healthiest.

Douglas County is performing slightly better than the average county in Kansas in terms of both population health and well-being and community conditions, as well as surpassing the national average.

photo by: County Health Rankings

Douglas County Community Conditions for 2025

Compared to national averages, the county has a lower unemployment rate, fewer children in poverty, a higher rate of flu vaccinations and fewer adults reporting poor health. It also has a lower percentage of births with a low birth weight; a lower average number of physically and mentally unhealthy days reported by residents in the last 30 days; a higher percentage of adults with some post-secondary education; and a higher percentage of residents with a high school diploma.

But, in addition to factors Douglas County does better in, the data also highlighted some concerns.

One is sexually transmitted diseases. Based on 2022 data, the county had 630.2 new cases of chlamydia diagnosed per 100,000 people. In the statewide data, 474.4 cases of chlamydia were reported per 100,000 people.

Another was deaths from drunken driving. The data said that out of all motor vehicle crash deaths in the county from 2018 to 2022, 33% involved alcohol; statewide, 21% of fatal accidents involved alcohol.

In addition, the county snapshot reveals that Douglas County does worse than other parts of the state on some housing issues that affect health. According to the website, 19% of Douglas County households had at least one of the following housing problems between 2017 and 2021: overcrowding, high housing costs, lack of kitchen facilities or lack of plumbing facilities. This is 7 percentage points higher than the statewide figures.

Another area that the report targets for improvement is income inequality. The ratio of household income at the 80th percentile to household income at the 20th percentile was 5.1 times in Douglas County, compared to the statewide average of 4.4.

The County Health Rankings website provides some suggestions for improving these statistics. For example, it suggests programs to help residents reduce environmental health risks in their homes, as well as offering grants to support affordable housing development or rental assistance for low-income households.

On income inequality, meanwhile, the website suggests expanding refundable earned income tax credits for working individuals and families with low to moderate incomes.

For its recommendations, “County Health Rankings has a team of individuals that goes through and reviews the research and the evidence to see if there is evidence that this strategy is effective and it achieves its goals, and there’s a rating scale that goes from scientifically supported, which is the strongest evidence, down to evidence of ineffectiveness,” Beckman said.

Although Douglas County is considered relatively healthy compared to other counties in the state, neighboring Johnson County ranks among the best in the United States in health and well-being and community conditions. On the other hand, Wyandotte County ranks the lowest in Kansas in both.

photo by: County Health Rankings

2025 Population Health and Well-being in Kansas

photo by: County Health Rankings

2025 Community Conditions in Kansas