News and notes on health, medicine and fitness
Wisconsin's public health report card mediocre
Wisconsin has plenty of room for improvement to become a healthier state, according to a new report from the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute in Madison.
The "Opportunities to Make Wisconsin the Healthiest State" report looked at health measures such as diet, physical activity, access to health and dental care, and social and economic factors that affect individual health status. The data used in the report was gathered from several sources, with the most recent data being collected in 2011.
Wisconsin performs better than the U.S. national average for 37 out of 51 health inducators in the report. The state's best overall score was for quality of health care.
But once again, the state performed the worst of all 50 states in percentage of adults who report engaging in frequent, heavy drinking. The U.S. average is 17%. Tennessee ranked lowest, with 7% of adults reporting heavy drinking, while Wisconsin ranked worst with 23% of adults indentifying as excessive drinkers.
Wisconsin also continues to be at the bottom for annual public health spending per capita, linked to increased availability of resources for prevention and health improvement. Hawaii spends the most at $244 per capita, while Wisconsin spends the least at $40 per capita.