America's Health Rankings 2019: How Georgia Ranks

ATLANTA, GA — The United Health Foundation recently released the 30th edition of its America's Health Rankings Annual Report, which represents the longest-running state-by-state analysis of the nation's health.

It's bad news for Georgia in 2019, as we finished 40th healthiest overall out of the 50 states.
Here's more information on how our state ranked across the five model categories that determined the overall ranking.

• Behaviors: 31
• Community & Environment: 38
• Policy: 47
• Clinical Care: 43
• Health Outcomes: 40

The overall ranking for Georgia dropped one position from the 2018 report. The state has hovered in the bottom tier in rankings overall throughout the past 30 years.

• 2010 Ranking: 37
• 2000 Ranking: 39
• 1990 Ranking: 43

Since 2013, high school graduation increased 20 percent from 67 percent to 80.6 percent of Georgia students. Another bit of good news: In the past two years, mental health providers increased 12 percent from 122.5 to 137.3 per 100,000 population.

Negative factors for the state: Since 2012, obesity increased 16 percent from 28 percent to 32.5 percent of adults.

Challenges the state still faces include:

• Low immunization coverage among children
• High prevalence of low birthweight
• Low rate of mental health providers

Related:

• Georgia's Best Hospitals: U.S. News Rankings For 2019
• 7 Georgia Hospitals Ranks As World's Best, Newsweek Says
• Georgia Hospitals Ranked By Safety Grades: Report

Here are some other healthy highlights from the report.

Vermont ranked as the healthiest city in America for 2019, the researchers found, followed by Massachusetts, Hawaii, Connecticut and Utah.

At the other end of the rankings, Mississippi finished as the lowest-ranked state in the nation. The bottom five was rounded out by Louisiana, Arkansas, Alabama and Oklahoma.

The report ranked all 50 states across 35 measures of health, such as e-cigarette use, housing problems and concentrated disadvantage. These measures were then filtered through the following five categories to help determine an overall ranking for each state:

• Behaviors
• Community & Environment
• Policy
• Clinical Care
• Health Outcomes

The America's Health Rankings Annual Report used 19 data sources to determine the most accurate information for each state, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Behavior Risk Surveillance System and the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey and Current Population Survey.

"The report provides a unique opportunity to track short- and long-term public health successes as well as identify current and emerging challenges at state and national levels," authors of the United Health Foundation wrote. "When reading the report, think beyond the rankings; every state, whether first or last, has strengths and challenges."

The full report is available on Americashealthrankings.org.