Are You Living in a Healthy State? Find out Here

By Sun

United Health Foundation released its 2006 edition of America's Health Rankings, a state-by-state ranking combines "the result of our personal behaviors, the environment of the community in which we live, the clinical care we receive and the policies and practices of our health care and prevention systems". According to United Health Foundation, the purpose of the ranking is to

stimulate public conversation concerning health in our states, as well as provide information to facilitate citizen participation. We encourage participation in all elements: personal behaviors, community environment, clinical care and public and health policies. Each person, individually and in their capacity as an employee, employer, voter, community volunteer, health official or elected official, can contribute to the advancement of the healthiness of their state.

The 2006 report ranked Minnesota, Vermont, and New Hampshire as the top three healthy states. The bottom three are South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana. In a related news on Bloomberg.com, " Louisianans as a whole are also more likely to succumb to cancer, die before 75 or be killed on the job than people in almost any other state." And spokesman for Louisiana's Department of Health and Hospitals spokesman Bob Johannessen said

Obesity is a key reason for our low ranking, and poverty and bad diets are fueling the problem. … Here, we tend to fry just about everything, from chicken to fish to you name it.

The following is the complete list of the ranking.

Rank	State	Score
1	Minnesota	21.2
2	Vermont	20.5
3	New Hampshire	18.9
4	Hawaii	17.9
5	Connecticut	17.2
6	Utah	16.3
7	Massachusetts	15.3
8	North Dakota	15.0
9	Maine	13.7
10	Wisconsin	13.3
11	Iowa	12.5
12	Nebraska	12.4
13	Rhode Island	11.4
14	New Jersey	11.0
15	Washington	10.2
16	Colorado	8.9
17	Kansas	7.9
18	South Dakota	7.5
19	Idaho	6.5
20	Oregon	6.5
21	Virginia	5.7
22	Montana	4.9
23	California	4.7
24	Wyoming	4.7
25	Illinois	3.7
26	Ohio	3.7
27	Michigan	2.3
28	Pennsylvania	1.8
29	New York	1.1
30	Delaware	-0.6
31	Alaska	-0.8
32	Maryland	-2.7
33	Indiana	-3.7
34	Arizona	-4.0
35	Missouri	-4.1
36	North Carolina	-4.3
37	Texas	-4.7
38	Nevada	-8.4
39	Kentucky	-10.1
40	New Mexico	-10.4
41	Florida	-10.6
41	Georgia	-11.7
43	West Virginia	-12.8
44	Oklahoma	-13.1
45	Alabama	-14.8
46	Arkansas	-16.1
47	Tennessee	-16.2
48	South Carolina	-16.4
49	Mississippi	-19.9
50	Louisiana	-20.4

For more information about the ranking and the methodology of the study, go to United Health Foundation.

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