The release of Georgia's new health ranking by the United Health Foundation (UHF) caught the attention of health officials and advocates last week. In UHF's America's Health Rankings report, Georgia moved up two slots and is now 36th among other states. Georgia was 38th in 2011.

 

Although not among the list of states that showed the most substantial improvements by moving up at least three slots, health officials recognize being ranked 36th is great progress. The Georgia Department of Public Health (DPH) hopes to increase its momentum by improving the health status and lifestyles of Georgians through low prevalence of obesity, smoking, infant mortality, diabetes and sedentary lifestyle over a lifespan.

 

Georgia's strengths in the 2012 report include high immunization coverage and low prevalence of binge drinking. The major challenges that influenced Georgia's health ranking are a low high school graduation rate, high levels of air pollution, high prevalence of babies with low birth weight and a high infant mortality rate.

 

"We have seen some improvement in Georgia's health rankings," said Kimberly C. Redding, M.D., M.P.H., director of DPH's Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Section. "In the 2008 report, Georgia ranked 41st among the 50 states and the District of Columbia. In the 2012 report, Georgia ranked 36th. In order to continue our upward movement, Georgia must support investments that will help reduce obesity and chronic diseases, decrease infant mortality and improve high school graduation rates".

 

Major highlights for Georgia in this year's UHF report indicate a need for improvement as well as progress:

• In Georgia, 2 million adults are obese and almost 750,000 adults have diabetes.
• In the past five years, the high school graduation rate increased from 61.2 percent to 67.8 percent of ninth graders who graduate in four years.
• Though Georgia is still challenged by a high infant mortality rate, in the past 10 years it has declined from 8.4 to 7.7 deaths per 1,000 live births.
• In the past five years, the rate of preventable hospitalizations decreased from 82.0 to 68.4 discharges per 1,000 Medicare enrollees.
• In the past 10 years, the rate of uninsured population increased from 15.0 percent to 19.3 percent. 

Health disparities played a major part in the rankings as detailed in UHF's report:

• Obesity is more prevalent among non-Hispanic blacks at 37.6 percent than non-Hispanic whites at 26.1 percent.
• Smoking is more prevalent among non-Hispanic whites at 18.8 percent than Hispanics at 13.6 percent.
• Sedentary lifestyle is more prevalent among Hispanics at 30.1 percent than non-Hispanic whites at 22.6 percent.

Among its southern counterparts, Georgia ranked higher than Tennessee (39th), Alabama (45th) and South Carolina (46th). Florida is the only southern state to rank higher than Georgia. Florida is ranked 34th. Vermont is the healthiest state among all states for the sixth consecutive year. Joining Vermont in the top five slots are Hawaii (2nd), New Hampshire (3rd), Massachusetts (4th) and Minnesota (5th). The five least healthy states are South Carolina (46th), West Virginia (47th), Arkansas (48th), and Mississippi and Louisiana (tied at 49th). Health officials acknowledge that behavioral determinants of health and socioeconomic factors gravely sway the rankings and overall outcomes in states in the bottom five.

 

For two decades, America's Health Rankings has been tracking the state of the nation's health by studying numerous health measures to compile a comprehensive perspective on our nation's health issues, state by state, according to UHF.

 

In a Dec. 11 news release, Reed Tuckson, M.D., UHF medical adviser and executive vice president and chief of medical affairs for UnitedHealth Group, addressed these findings in the report that indicated that Americans are living longer but unnecessarily sicker.

 

"As a nation, we've made extraordinary gains in longevity over the past decades, but as individuals we are regressing in our health," said Tuckson. "We owe this progress not only to medical breakthroughs, but to public health advocates who are working tirelessly to advance wellness on the community level. But our public health heroes cannot do it alone. Longer lives need not be sicker lives, so we must all come together to do more to prevent the risk factors within our personal control."

 

Read the full United Health Foundation America's Health Rankings at www.americashealthrankings.com

 

-Story by Connie F. Smith, DPH Communications