The health care company, United Health Foundation, published their annual report regarding the health situation in every American state.
The foundation explained in the report that there had been significant improvements concerning long-standing public health objectives, like cigarette smoking rates. However, there is data that shows failures in other critical health standards like cardiovascular death rates.
The United Health Foundation has presented its annual study since the year 1990. Comparing smoking rates since that year, there has been a substantial drop of 41 percent, and even in the last four years, the rate has decreased by 17 percent.
However, last year’s data shows how cardiovascular death rates stopped its continuous fall since the year 1991. In 2016, the national cardiovascular mortality rate went from 250.8 to 251.7 per 100,000 citizens. Also, drug-related deaths rates have increased 9 percent since the year 2011, and only since last year, the rate rose by 4 percent.
In one of the most noteworthy cases, since the year 1990, the year when the United Health Foundation started its report publishments, the countrywide rate of obesity presented an enormous rise of 157 percent.
Hawaii is the number one on the list
For five consecutive years, Hawaii has led the list of the healthiest states in the U.S.
The head of the local Department of Health, Dr. Virginia Pressler, said that the department was pleased of being recognized by the foundation as one of the most healthiest states in the country. She also stated that this recognition reflected the country’s focus on health-related issues, general lifestyle, and environment protection.
However, she also admitted that the study didn’t get the whole picture and that this state must pay attention to every population group to improve even more.
“However, while our state scored well among most of the report’s measures, we must remember that some health areas and population groups are not always captured in the data. We need to pay attention to groups that aren’t enjoying good health status so that everyone has the opportunity to live a healthy and full life,” Pressler said in an official statement after the publishment of the report.
Connecticut, Minnesota, Vermont, New Hampshire, Washington, Utah, New Jersey, and Colorado completed the top 10 of healthiest U.S. states, while Oklahoma, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi were the bottom five states on the list.
There was a significant difference between every individual state rank, and this shows how some regions present much better health standards than others. The study revealed how Southeastern states commonly are ranked lower year after year while Northeastern states usually are filling the top of the annual lists.
This proves that the most difficult challenges are from Southeastern states and that attention and new policies have to be taken to improve health standards as soon as possible
Source: America’s Health Ranking