America’s Health Rankings 2019: New Jersey Ranks 8th

NEW JERSEY — 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 for New Jersey in 2019, as we finished as the eighth healthiest overall out of the 50 states. Here’s more information on how New Jersey ranked across the five model categories that determined the overall ranking.

• Behaviors: 3
• Community & Environment: 12
• Policy: 31
• Clinical Care: 13
• Health Outcomes: 11

The overall ranking for New Jersey moved up three spots from the 2018 report, when it was ranked 11th. It was the fourth largest improvement among all states from 2018 to 2019. Additionally, we have seen steady improvement in ranking overall throughout the past 30 years, moving up 13 spots from 21st in 1990.

The high school graduation rate in New Jersey is 90.5 percent, and air pollution is down 40 percent since 2003, according to the report. Cancer deaths are down 7 percent over the last 10 years. There are low amounts of obesity and violent crime that also contributed to New Jersey’s rise.

However, the state also sees a lot of physical inactivity among its residents, and there is low per capita public health funding. Drug deaths are up 63 percent, from 14.0 to 22.8 deaths per 100,000 people over the last three years. The immunization coverage among children is 97 percent.

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.