LEWISTON — Nearly 1,000 lives could be saved each year if Maine’s least-healthy counties lived as well as its healthiest counties, according to a new report.

It includes Androscoggin County among the least healthy. 

The Maine Health Gaps Report was released Tuesday by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Public Health Institute as part of a 50-state review looking at health differences among counties. Using data from the 2015 County Health Rankings, they considered 30 factors that contribute to how long and how well people live.

Androscoggin County ranked 13th out of 16 counties in the County Health Rankings, with worse-than-average scores for the percentage of children in poverty, adult obesity, the ratio of primary care doctors to residents, high school graduation rates, sexually transmitted infections and number of premature deaths, among other things.

The Maine Health Gaps Report said six Maine counties have the highest percentage of “deaths in excess”: Androscoggin, Aroostook, Kennebec, Penobscot, Somerset and Washington.

It said changes in lifestyle, health care, environment and socioeconomics could help avoidable deaths in those counties. It is unclear how many lives could be saved in each.

“This report is really aimed at helping to understand what’s the difference between the higher performing counties and the lower performing counties,” said Karen Odegaard, an associate researcher with the project. “What’s different and what can we do about it?”

The report said Cumberland, Lincoln, Hancock, Knox, Sagadahoc and York counties had the lowest percentage of “deaths in excess.” They were also named the healthiest Maine counties in the 2015 County Health Rankings.

Tuesday’s report highlighted seven particularly large or influential differences separating the healthiest and least healthy counties in Maine: smoking among adults, access to exercise opportunities, alcohol-impaired driving deaths, high school graduation rates, college education, unemployment rates and long commutes. 

The report said those were issues policymakers and state leaders might want to consider when prioritizing funding and other resources.

Erin Guay, executive director for Healthy Androscoggin, agreed that closing the gaps would help save lives.

“I think socioeconomic factors play a really big role,” she said. “I mean, if you’re living in poverty and you’re working two to three jobs, you don’t have an opportunity to get to the grocery store as much to get healthy fruits and vegetables, you can’t join a gym to work out. All those sorts of things are challenges. The challenges just pile up on each other.”

Healthy Androscoggin, which deals with public health concerns in the county, has been working on lowering residents’ tobacco use and improving physical activity, two areas Tuesday’s report listed as concerning for Maine. Guay noted that changes don’t have to cost a lot to make a big impact.

Healthy Androscoggin has been working with Central Maine Medical Center and St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center, both in Lewiston, to directly refer patients to the state’s free tobacco help line. At CMMC, referral rates jumped from fewer than 40 patients over six months to 1,100.

“Just that little connection has a big impact,” Guay said.  

Although Androscoggin County performed poorly in a number of areas, it had better-than-state-average exercise opportunities, preventable hospital stays and alcohol-impaired driving deaths.

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Some key measures for Androscoggin County:

                                                                    Androscoggin                           Maine

Children in poverty:                                       22 percent                                18 percent

Primary care physician ratio:                       1:1,380                                       1:935

Physical inactivity:                                         24 percent                                 21 percent 

Adult obesity:                                                 31 percent                                  28 percent

Sexually transmitted infections:                   425                                              257

Teen births (per 1,000 girls):                        36                                                23

High school graduation:                                  80 percent                                 85 percent 

Premature deaths (per 100,000 people):   7,070                                           6,199

How healthy is your county? From the 2015 County Health Rankings:

1: Sagadahoc

2: Cumberland

3: Hancock

4: York

5: Lincoln

6: Knox

7: Oxford

8: Kennebec

9: Franklin

10: Washington

11: Penobscot

12: Waldo

13: Androscoggin

14: Aroostook

15: Piscataquis

16: Somerset