Connecticut Is Ranked Nation’s

Fifth Healthiest State

WASHINGTON, D.C. — While Connecticut improved its ranking, advancing from the seventh to fifth healthiest state in the country, the overall health of the nation declined over the past year. The news came recently from the United Health Foundation, the American Public Health Association (APHA), and Partnership for Prevention, providing good news for most of New England, and citing progress made in several key health indicators.

 The 18th annual edition of America’s Health Rankings measured the overall healthiness of states and the nation using a comprehensive and longitudinal set of related health determinants and health outcomes. The report indicates that the overall health of the nation declined by a rate of 0.3 percent since last year.

While this report, and others, show there have been modest gains in reducing the rates of cancer and cardiovascular mortality, these improvements continue to be dwarfed by increasing obesity, increasing numbers of uninsured people, children in poverty, and the persistence of risky health behaviors, such as tobacco use and violent crime — all of which have a significant impact on the overall healthiness of the nation.

“Even though specific mortality rates have improved, this report shows there are still many people who, through unhealthy personal behaviors, adverse community environments, and difficult access to care, are vulnerable to a future life of poor health — which is essentially preventable,” said Reed Tuckson, MD, member of the board of United Health Foundation. “The consequence of this reality manifests itself in a poor quality of life, people living with chronic disease, compromised productivity and significant escalation in the costs associated with managing chronic illness.”

This lack of progress is in sharp contrast to the nation’s average annual improvement of 1.5 percent between 1990 and 2000. In fact, since 2000, there has been a virtual stagnation in health improvement. The failure to demonstrate progress is particularly worrisome given that the US continues to trail other nations in important health indicators such as infant mortality and healthy life expectancy.

Connecticut’s strengths included high immunization coverage with 86.1 percent of children ages 19 to 35 months receiving complete immunizations; a low prevalence of smoking at 16.5 percent of the population; a low prevalence of obesity at 20.1 percent of the population; a low rate of motor vehicle deaths at 0.9 deaths per 100 million miles driven; and a low premature death rate with 6,043 years of potential life lost before age 75 per 100,000 population.

The state’s ranking was affected by a high incidence of infectious disease at 24.4 cases per 100,000 population. The study also noted that since 1990, the rate of Connecticut’s uninsured population increased from 6.4 percent to 11.3 percent.

In other Connecticut findings, the study found the percentage of women who receive prenatal care varies from 78 percent among Hispanics to 92 percent among whites. Cancer is eight percent more prevalent among whites (493.5 cases per 100,000 population) than Hispanics (457.7 cases per 100,000 population).

The cost of clinical care in Connecticut is high compared to other states and the quality of care is high.

This year the report analyzes a comprehensive set of 20 related health measures, such as smoking, binge drinking, violent crime, infectious disease, high school graduation, health status, and several measures of mortality. The analysis of this comprehensive set of factors allows for a more complete and holistic view of the health of the nation than only death-related statistics. The following is a snapshot of the national findings:

Since the first report in 1990, America’s Health Rankings, using a consistent set of measures, has shown an 18.4 percent improvement in the nation’s overall health. This national success can be attributed mostly to:

*The reduction of several health determinants, such as infectious diseases, smoking, infant mortality, cardiovascular deaths, and violent crime.

*Fewer children living in poverty.

*More ninth graders graduating high school within four years now than in 1990.

Over the last six years, however, the nation’s health has virtually stagnated. Several reasons for the stagnation are obesity, a growing number of uninsured, and persistent lack of progress in key health measures such as tobacco use, violent crime, and children in poverty. Within the national environment, some states have addressed key health issues and improved; however, others have not and are declining.

Obesity has increased from 11.6 percent of the population in 1990 to more than 25 percent today. More than 55 million Americans are obese and as a result are at significant risk for other diseases, such as heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and cancer.

According to the US Census Bureau, the number of Americans who are uninsured has increased from 13.4 percent in 1990 to 15.8 percent of the population today. Up .5 percent from last year, an alarming 47 million Americans are living without health insurance.

Tragically, more than nine million of the uninsured are children. According to the Institute of Medicine (IOM), people without health insurance are sicker and die sooner. IOM attributes 18,000 deaths per year to people under age 65 due to lack of insurance coverage.