KHI NEWS SERVICE
TOPEKA, Nov. 5
A new national comparison of the 50 states shows the overall health of Americans, and Kansans in particular, has declined.
The state”s top health official said the report released Monday was evidence lawmakers need to act on a
package of health reform proposals
delivered to them last week.
“This year”s study confirms that the health reform proposals need favorable consideration,” said Roderick Bremby, secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.
“Over the past year, we declined in the number of children being immunized and saw a higher rate of uninsured Kansans as well as an increase in the number of adult smokers.”
Bremby said Kansas also “continues to experience a dangerous increase in the number of adults who are overweight or obese.”
According to the 18th annual edition of
“America”s Health Rankings: A Call to Action for People and Their Communities,”
Kansas in 2007 ranked 23rd nationally in overall health. In last year”s report, it ranked
17th. The report also showed that since 1990, Kansas showed the 2nd least improvement in overall health of any state, better only than New Jersey, and that the obesity rate in that same period had nearly doubled, said Joe Blubaugh, a KDHE spokesman.
Among the report”s
Kansas findings
:
*
In the past year, the prevalence of smoking increased from 17.8 percent to 20.0 percent of the population.
*
In the past year, the rate of uninsured population increased from 10.3 percent to 12.3 percent.
*
Since 1990, the percentage of children under age 18 living in poverty increased from 14.3 percent to 19.7 percent.
Kansas” strengths, according to the report, included a relatively low rate of infectious disease and ready access to adequate prenatal care. But the ranking also showed Kansas has relatively limited access to primary care and a low childhood immunization rate.
The percentage of Kansans considered obese grew by 2 percent since last year”s report.
One in four persons is now considered obese, up from 13 percent in 1990.
Those factors, combined with low per-capita public health spending, a low per-capita number of primary care physicians and a high rate of preventable hospitalizations led to Kansas having the dubious distinction of being the state with the greatest overall health score decline from last year, after having the fourth highest health improvement in the 2006 report.
Kansas also continues to lag other states in seatbelt use. In 2006, the Kansas seatbelt rate was 73 percent, which ranked the state 43rd in the nation. The Driving Force, a task force commissioned by the Kansas Department of Transportation, the Kansas Highway Patrol and KDHE, was unsuccessful in their efforts earlier this year to convince legislators to pass a primary seatbelt law.
Kansas also compared poorly for the amount it spent on preventing tobacco use. In 2006, Kansas collected $124 million in tobacco taxes and $48.6 million from tobacco settlement payments, but spent less than $2.4 million for prevention.
Vermont was ranked the healthiest state; Mississippi the least healthy.
Two of Kansas” neighbor states also ranked low with Missouri at 35th and Oklahoma at 47th. Colorado ranked 16th; Nebraska, 10th.
According to the report, overall health improvement in the U.S. has been stagnant since 2000 after significant improvement throughout the 1990s.
This year”s decline of 0.3 percent represented the first drop in overall health of the nation in the 18-year history of the report.
“Even though specific mortality rates have improved, this report shows that 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 Dr. Reed Tuckson, a member of the United Health Foundation board.
The report, which also can be found at
www.americashealthrankings.org
,
was jointly produced by the United Health Foundation, the American Public Health Association and the Partnership for Prevention.