Today is the official launch of the 2013 edition of United Health Foundation’s America’s Health Rankings® report. This year, we’re cautiously optimistic about what we see in the data. After years of discouraging reports, we are pleased to announce that Americans have made substantial progress in their health. In fact, Americans made improvements in a majority of the measures we use to calculate the Rankings. In addition, we are finally seeing signs of a leveling off in the obesity epidemic.
In addition to having some refreshingly positive news to report, we have also some interesting changes in the state rankings. Hawaii has taken first place this year. Vermont is ranked second this year, having been consistently ranked in the top five states for the past decade. Minnesota is third, followed by Massachusetts and New Hampshire. The five least healthy states are Mississippi (50), Arkansas (49), Louisiana (48), Alabama (47) and West Virginia (46). To see the rankings in full, visit the rankings overview. The positive news we see in this year’s report is certainly a hopeful sign that we can turn the corner on our country’s health challenges and achieve better health for all. However, maintaining momentum will require effort from all of us.
We encourage you to peruse this site and explore the materials and information we offer, including our Take Action Resource Library. We are also excited this year to offer many new interactive features, including core measure impact maps that show an example of which measures have the most impact on states’ health; our related measures maps that helps users understand how measures like smoking relate to other measures used in the Rankings; a new tool that helps visualize disparities in, for instance, the prevalence of measures like physical inactivity among those with varying levels of education; and downloadable thematic maps that show individual health measures over time.
We at United Health Foundation are deeply committed to advancing the subtitle of America’s Health Rankings: “A Call to Action for Individuals and Their Communities.” As such, we are particularly excited about a project we are supporting with the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) to identify the most promising public health innovations that have led to measurable health improvements and to create a “Learning Laboratory” for the dissemination and implementation of these best practices. While ASTHO is in the early stages of the project, important examples are already emerging. For example, state public health leaders are excited by Arkansas’s experience with multidisciplinary team engagement to lower infant mortality. Also of interest is Georgia’s use of telehealth delivered services to expand patient access to physicians in areas with physician shortages.
As this year’s report so powerfully illustrates, we can make progress against even the toughest health challenges when we set our minds to it. As you dig into the year’s Rankings and consider ways to promote health in your own communities, we hope you will keep in touch with us via Facebook and Twitter to let us know about progress you are making.