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CHARLOTTE – A new study released Wednesday ranked the healthiest counties in the state, and Mecklenburg, Wake, Guilford and New Hanover counties all ranked in the top 25.

Researchers at University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, along with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, ranked each county in the United States by measuring how healthy their residents are and how long they live.

"Certain things are healthy. Certain things, we've got a long way to go," Dr. Stephen Keener, with the Mecklenburg County Health Department, said of the County Health Rankings report.

It's the first of its kind to examine how multiple factors, such as smoking, access to health care, rates of violent crime and unemployment, affect residents’ health on a county level. Keener says each county's rank reveals a pattern of both strengths and weaknesses.

“In some areas we have morbidity or illness and mortality or death that's less than what our desired goal is, and that's a good thing,” Keener said. “But we know that we have a long way to go with things like childhood obesity and HIV and sexually transmitted disease, so I think it depends on which area you're asking,"

Ultimately, the health department hopes elected officials on the local, state and national levels will take the data and put it to good use.

“[We can] make more policies locally regarding smoking in public places, or we can make more policies in school systems about the menus,” Keener said. “We can encourage restaurants to have more healthy food items, we can make more green space locally.”

The study found the healthiest counties in the state are clustered in the Piedmont and mountains, while the least healthy are sprinkled in the Southern Piedmont and eastern regions of the state.