Health
A general health scorecard for Anderson county is available here: https://www.countyhealthrankings.org/app/south-carolina/2021/rankings/anderson/county/outcomes/overall/snapshot which includes information on the physical environment, clinical care, health behaviors, and length of life.
Life Expectancy
The CDC has data on life expectancy in our county at the Census tract level: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data-visualization/life-expectancy/. From this, you can see that there is a wide variation simply based on locale, from 82.1 to only 67.7 years.
Overall Health Data
SC Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Online Analytics data captures health information for Anderson county: https://public.tableau.com/views/RFAPublicDashboard/Health?%3Adisplay_count=no&%3AshowVizHome=no#1 which includes information on types of health visits (diabetes, hypertension, asthma, and heart disease). Anderson county only leads the state average in asthma disease visit rates; disease visit rates are much higher in the other three.
DHEC Risk Factors
Likewise, the SC Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) has a county health profile: https://gis.dhec.sc.gov/chp/ which includes information on births, infant mortality, chronic diseases, risk factors, and health behaviors, mortality, health care access, and home and environmental hazards. It shows that while diseases of the heart account for most deaths, the deaths in our county due to Alzheimer’s are among the highest in the state, with a ranking of 43 out of 46 counties. Asthma and coronary heart disease are our county’s highest risk areas.
Older Housing and Asthma
DHEC includes as a health risk factor homes built prior to 1980. The CDC and National Institute of Health, among others, found that home is where the triggers for asthma are – poor quality, as well as older housing, exacerbates underlying biological factors. Homeownership is associated with lower odds of an asthma emergency department visit. Using the most recent (2019) American Community Survey housing data, from table S2504, we find that while 42.9% of our county’s housing stock is built before 1980, a higher percentage – 47.6% – is occupied by renters. There’s much information within the ACS and other surveys from the Census Bureau https://data.census.gov/cedsci/advanced for our county, municipalities, and other regions. You can also examine disability characteristics of our county at the same website.
In-Home Assistance Needed
Overall, in our county, the number of people with a disability is highest for those aged 35-64: 14,110 persons; there are just 13,599 persons over 65 with a disability. However, when we look at specific types of disabilities, such as those with a self-care or independent-living difficulty, we find the older adults are the largest population.
