America's Health Rankings

Overall health in the US has not improved over the last year. 

How depressing is that statement?

The United Health Foundation recently published their most recent findings to create the America's Health Rankings.  Want to geek out for a few hours and compare state data?  Want to see which states have the best and worst health outcomes?  Look at incidence rates?  This is the site for you!

One of the things I came across was a section on preventable hospitalizations.  Sadly many of the under and uninsured US population uses the Emergency Department for their primary health needs instead of seeing their PCP.  Preventable hospitalizations is defined as the discharge rate from hospitals for conditions for which good outpatient care can potentially prevent the need for hospitalizations.  These include conditions such as adult asthma, congestive heat failure, COPD.  These rates highly correlate with general admission and reflect the tendency for a population to overuse the hospital setting as a site for care.  The 3-D map is a bit hard to read, but go by the number written in the states; one is the best 50 is the worst. 

The national average is 68.16 per 1,000 Medicare enrollees. 

The best is Hawaii with 25.6 and the worst is Kentucky with 103.8



In good news, smoking down 41% since 1990.  On the flip side, 1 in 6 still smoke.