Minnesota was deemed the healthiest U.S. state for the fourth year in a row, while Louisiana slumped into last place as the least healthy in annual state-by-state rankings released by on Tuesday. Vermont placed second as it did in 2005 with New Hampshire, Hawaii and Connecticut rounding out the five healthiest states in the report by the United Health Foundation, a nonprofit group formed by health care company UnitedHealth Group.
The report weighed a series of factors in determining rankings, such as prevalence of obesity, smoking, infectious disease, cardiovascular deaths, infant mortality, child poverty, immunization rates, workplace deaths and auto deaths. Southern states performed particularly poorly while those in New England and some in the Upper Midwest fared well.
The United States as a whole experienced a slight rise in health over last year, the report stated, but lags behind many other nations in key measures such as infant mortality. "Since 1990, America is a healthier place. The bad news: since the year 2000, we've made very little progress. The health of the nation has become stagnant," Tuckson said. Tuckson cited a dramatic increase in obesity, a rising number of Americans - 46.6 million in a country of 300 million - without health insurance, and smoking by 21 percent of U.S. adults, lower than many countries but still problematic. The American Public Health Association and Partnership for Prevention also contributed to the report, posted on the Web at http://www.unitedhealthfoundation.org/ahr2006.html .
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