Minnesota Is Extremely Healthy, Except In These 3 Categories

MINNESOTA — 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 good news overall for Minnesota in 2019, as we finished seventh healthiest overall out of the 50 states.

Minnesota’s many strengths include a low percentage of children in poverty, low prevalence of low birthweight, and a low cardiovascular death rate.

However, Minnesota performed very poorly in three crucial categories. The Land of 10,000 Lakes has a high prevalence of excessive drinking, low immunization coverage among children, and a low percentage of high school graduation.

• 21.8 percent of Minnesota's adults partake in excessive drinking
• 87.7 percent of high school students graduate
• Only 66.1 percent of kids ages 19–35 months are immunized

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.