Updated National Health Ranking Shows No Improvement For Hoosiers

Friday, December 6, 2019 at 8:57 AM

Major factors affecting Indiana's rank are obesity, drug deaths, and diabetes.

(Indianapolis, Ind.) - The 2019 results are in for America's Health Rankings.

Indiana is ranked #41 for the second year in a row. Major factors affecting Indiana's rank are obesity, drug deaths, and diabetes.

Rank is based on the "weighted sum of the number of standard deviations each core measure is from the national average."

A Health Assessment and Improvement Plan was created in 2018 to identify health issues and find ways to improve the overall health of Hoosiers. This plan will run through the remainder of 2021.

The top ten identified priorities of the local State Health Assessment included:

Access to care
Mental and behavioral health
Obesity
Substance abuse disorders
Nutrition and physical activity
Diabetes
Tobacco use
Heart disease
Cancer Maternal and infant health

Many of these SHA priorities were found to be the culprits keeping Indiana at the bottom of the rankings.

Highlights from the 2019 Indiana Summary of the health rankings include a 9% increase in obesity, 176% increase of drug related deaths since 2007, and a 23% increase of diabetes since 2012.

To view all of the data collected by the United Health Foundation for America's Health Ranking, you can visit the website here.