When we release America’s Health Rankings® each December, the first question we get is usually, “Where does my state rank?” followed by, “Okay, so which was the healthiest state?” However, if you look at only the ranking numbers, and if you read only your home state’s profile, you’re missing one of the most powerful pieces of the report: the commentaries on America’s health written by some of our country’s leading experts.
This December will mark the 25th anniversary of America’s Health Rankings, and it’s a good reminder to revisit what we’ve learned from our many years of publishing the thoughts of these public health luminaries.
These commentaries highlight our country’s most pressing challenges. They also highlight solutions, such as in the 2012 joint commentary from members of the Community Preventive Services Task Force. The authors discussed the newly created Community Guide, “a one-stop source of programs, services and policies that have been proven to protect and improve health at the population level in a variety of settings.” From changes for schools to entire states, the Community Guide is full of proven recommendations for healthier living.
Many states are looking for resources like those in the Community Guide because, as Dr. Harvey Fineberg warned us in his 2013 commentary, our health system “is neither successful or sustainable.” Dr. Fineberg, then the president of the Institute of Medicine, outlined three great tasks for us to undertake if we are to fulfill our nation’s potential for health:
- Provide better care, available equitably, at a lower cost
- Foster a culture of health
- Invest in health research for superior future health
Finally, I want to highlight one commentary I found especially powerful in last year’s report: Kathy Greenlee’s discussion of elder abuse in our country. Greenlee is the Administrator of the Administration for Community Living and Assistant Secretary for Aging in the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and I had the pleasure of meeting her when we both gave remarks at the launch event for the United Health Foundation’s first-ever Senior Report in 2013.
In her commentary, she writes that while America has known for decades how quickly our population 65 and older is growing, “we are woefully unprepared to deal with one specific and dangerous public health issue facing our seniors—the problem of elder abuse.” Assistant Secretary Greenlee shares the challenges of measuring the size and scope of our elder abuse problems, the impact of abuse on seniors’ health, safety and finances, and the steps that those in HHS, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and the US Department of Justice have taken to address the lack of data on this troubling issue, an issue many don’t even know exists.
I hope that sharing some of my favorite recent commentaries encourages you to dive deeper into past America’s Health Rankings reports. We all can find inspiration for ways we can go beyond measuring health and to improving it.