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Which State Is the Healthiest?
Survey Shows Minnesota Is on a Winning Streak
Dec. 12, 2005 -- Minnesota ranks at the top of a list of the nation's healthiest states in a report released Monday.
The state again capped an annual list of health measures put out by several nonprofit groups, which measure infant mortality and obesity rates, numbers of the uninsured, and other health factors.
The report continued a streak for the North Star State, which has ranked first for 10 of the report's 16 years. However, experts warned that nationwide health obesity and smoking continue to place a drag on slowing nationwide health improvements.
Minnesota placed first among the states because of a low cardiovascular death rate, low overall premature death rates, and lower-than-average numbers of children in poverty. Vermont, New Hampshire, Utah, and Hawaii followed in the rankings.
Meanwhile, five Southern states continued to score as the nation's least healthy. Mississippi ranked at the bottom, followed by Louisiana, Tennessee, Arkansas, and South Carolina. Those states continue to see high rates of obesity, smoking, poverty, and persons lacking health insurance, according to the report.
National Trends Slowing
Advocates say they are encouraged by several improving trends, including a dropping teen birth rate, lower rates of infectious diseases, and lower incidences of violent crime nationwide.
But those improvements are being largely eclipsed by rising obesity and continued high rates of smoking, they warned. Although there was a slight decrease in smoking prevalence from 22% in 2004 to 20.8% in 2005, there were no significant changes between 1993 and 2003.
At the same time, nationwide obesity rates have more than doubled since 1990 and now top 23%, according to the report.
"We are stagnating now," says Reed Tuckson, MD, vice president of United Health Foundation, one of the groups releasing the report. "We've made very little progress in improving the healthiness of the nation since 2000."
The study warns that the U.S. continues to lag behind other nations in several basic health measures. Americans born today can expect to live just over 69 years free of serious disease, a ranking that puts it behind 27 other nations, the report states. Japan's disease-free life expectancy, the world's best, is more than 75 years, it states.
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