Arizona ranks 30th out of the nation for overall state health, according to the United Health Foundation’s America’s Health Rankings Annual Report for 2015. This is down from last year’s ranking of 29th.
According to Dr. Cara Christ, director for the Arizona Department of Health Services, “There were many strengths and highlights for Arizona noted in the report. Despite a national trend of increasing physical inactivity, Arizona actually had an improvement in this area with a decrease in the percentage of people who reported physical inactivity by 16 percent.”
Arizona’s percentage of people who are obese is below the national average.
Arizona also saw a decrease in preventable hospitalizations of 22 percent over the past two years. “Smoking is another area where Arizona is doing well,” wrote Crist on the ADHS website. “Our current smoking rate among adults is 16.5 percent compared to 18.1 percent nationally. Other strengths included low rates of cancer and cardiovascular deaths. Many of the measures that the report uses to determine the ranking are being addressed by Arizona’s State Health Improvement Plan (AzHIP) and its strategies.”
The United Health Foundation’s website shows all of the states and their rankings. Crist notes that “you can see where we rank for each individual measure (i.e. we rank 5th in the nation for our low cancer deaths and 8th in the nation for our low occupational injuries).”