America’s Health Rankings 2019: How VA, DC Rank

WASHINGTON, DC — 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 Virginia in 2019, as we finished 15th healthiest overall out of the 50 states. Data for the District of Columbia was shared, but DC was not ranked with the states.

Here’s more information on how the Commonwealth ranked across the five model categories that determined the overall ranking.

• Behaviors: 11
• Community & Environment: 11
• Policy: 22
• Clinical Care: 15
• Health Outcomes: 15

The overall ranking for Virginia moved up five positions from the 2018 report. Additionally, we have seen steady improvement in ranking overall throughout the past 30 years.

• 2010 Ranking: 22nd
• 2000 Ranking: 21st
• 1990 Ranking: 22nd

Virginia drug deaths increased 52 percent in the last three years from 10.1 to 15.4 deaths
per 100,000 population.

Among the good news for the state, since 2012, smoking decreased 29 percent from 20.9 percent to 14.9 percent of adults.

And air pollution decreased 49 percent from 13.5 to 6.9 micrograms of fine particles per cubic meter since 2003 in the state.

Challenges the state still faces include:

Low rate of mental health providers

• Low per capita public health funding
• Low meningococcal immunization coverage among adolescents

Related:

• Virginia Hospital Safety Ratings: 2 Earn 'D' Grades, 35 Get 'A'
• Virginia, DC Hospital Safety Grades For 2019
• These Are Virginia's Best Hospitals: U.S. News 2019 Rankings

For the District of Columbia, the report noted:

Strengths:
• Low prevalence of physical inactivity
• High rate of mental health providers
• Low prevalence of diabetes

Challenges:
• High prevalence of excessive drinking
• High violent crime rate
• High drug death rate

Highlights:
• In the past year, physical inactivity decreased 15% from 23.0% to 19.6% of adults
• In the past two years, the percentage of the population without health insurance decreased 10% from 3.9% to 3.5%
• In the past three years, drug deaths increased 154% from 15.3 to 38.8 deaths per 100,000 population
• Since 2012, frequent mental distress increased 17% from 10.8% to 12.6% of adults

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.