How the states rank nationally in health

Medical Laboratory Observer, Dec, 1990 by Robert J. Fitzgibbon

How the states rank nationally in health Minnesota and Utah are the healthiest states in which to live, and Alaska is the unhealthiest.

These were among the findings of a new national study recently issued by the Northwestern National Life Insurance Co., based in Minneapolis (see Table I).

The report ranked the 50 states by five main categories: life-style, access to health care, disability, disease, and mortality. The rankings were compiled by weighting the importance of each of 17 factors clustered into the five main ones. Because of the weighting, a state could rank reasonably well in some areas and still be near the bottom of the list overall because of negative scores in the more heavily weighted categories.

The survey's life-style factor included prevalence of smoking, motor vehicle deaths, violent crime, heart disease risk, and percentage of high school graduates (due to the link between education level and general health).

The second major factor, access to care, was made up of the state unemployment rate, a measurement of prenatal care, Health Manpower Shortage Areas, and x a percentage of state budget spent on welfare, health, and hospitals committed to low-income residents.

Two components determined the disability factor: the types of activities limited by illness or injury, indicating the proportion of the population that is disabled; and how often people visited physicians due to acute illness.

The disease factor was composed of the incidence of heart disease, cancer, and infectious diseases, defined as AIDS, hepatitis, and tuberculosis.

The final factor analyzed, mortality, included such indicators as total mortality, infant mortality, and years of potential life lost when death occurs before age 65.