The state of Wisconsin is the 18th-healthiest state, according to Minnetonka, Minn.-based United Health Foundation’s 2010 American’s Health Rankings report. Wisconsin’s 18th place ranking for 2010 was down from 12th in 2009.
The report listed Wisconsin’s health strengths as: high rate of high school graduation, low rate of uninsured population, high immunization coverage and few poor mental health days per month.
The report said Wisconsin’s biggest health challenges are its high prevalence of binge drinking and low per capita public health funding.
Overall, U.S. health improved during the last year at a slightly faster pace than the last decade, but at a slower pace than in the 1990s, according to the report. The nation’s overall health improved one percentage point last year. From 2000-09, the nation’s health improved 0.5 percent per year, but in the 1990s, overall health improved 1.5 percent per year.
However, during the last year national reductions in smoking, preventable hospitalizations and infectious disease were offset by continued increases in obesity, children in poverty, and lack of health insurance. The report also shows a 19 percent increase since 2005 in the percentage of adults who had been diagnosed with diabetes.
“The rate of gain, while positive, is wholly inadequate for us as a nation. We know with certainty that many people will suffer consequences of preventable disease unless we strengthen individual healthiness, community by community across America,” said Reed Tuckson, M.D., United Health Foundation board member and executive vice president and chief of medical affairs, UnitedHealth Group. “States can use America’s Health Rankings to identify their state’s and other states’ strengths and use those examples to address areas that need attention in their own state. The key is action. We must continue to work toward impacting change in unhealthy behaviors and other factors that negatively impact a state.”
Vermont tops the list of healthiest states for the fourth year in a row. Massachusetts is ranked second, New Hampshire third, Connecticut fourth and Hawaii fifth.
Mississippi was ranked the least healthy state in the nation. Louisiana, Arkansas, Nevada and Oklahoma rounded out the bottom five.
