Which is the Drunkest County in South Dakota?

Not long ago, a national survey singled out Brookings as the drunkest city in South Dakota.

But now a new survey has zoomed out a bit, taking things to the country level to find each state's biggest alcohol abusers.

24/7 Wall St looked at excessive drinking rates data from County Health Rankings & Roadmaps, a joint program between the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, and using those numbers, ranked the 50 drunkest counties in America.

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In South Dakota, the place where the highest percentage of people binge drink (4+ drinks in single occasion for women, 5+ drinks for men), is right smack dab in the middle of the Mount Rushmore State.

Stanley County, population 2,980, checks in with an adult binge or heavy drinking rate of 27 percent, which is slightly higher than the national average.

The county, which is home to Fort Pierre as the county seat, has a median household income of $71,382 (282nd highest of 3,106 U.S. counties) and lists nearly 11 percent of its population in poor or fair health (14th lowest of U.S. 3,106 counties).

And while Stanley County's drinking numbers are troubling, they pale in comparison to the dreadful showing of a single state in this study.

Of the top 50 drunkest counties in America, a staggering 41 of them are in Wisconsin, where Outagamie County leads all counties with a binge-drinking rate ore more than 30 percent (31%).

While we're considering staging an intervention for the Badger State, we need to acknowledge a less than stellar showing for our neighbors to the east.

Six Iowa counties made the top 50, including Lyon County (#47) which is just across the South Dakota border in the extreme northwest corner of the state.

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Stacker used data from the 2020 County Health Rankings to rank every state's average life expectancy from lowest to highest. The 2020 County Health Rankings values were calculated using mortality counts from the 2016-2018 National Center for Health Statistics. The U.S. Census 2019 American Community Survey and America's Health Rankings Senior Report 2019 data were also used to provide demographics on the senior population of each state and the state's rank on senior health care, respectively.

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Filed Under: Drinking, Fort Pierre, South Dakota

Categories: News