Southern states are the least healthy in America, according to a new report.
NiceRx and the online pharmacy platform collected data on obesity, smoking rates, exercise levels, and diet from 49 out of 50 states and used data to create a “health score” for each state, which ranks each state’s overall health from zero to ten.
At the bottom of the list are only states in the southern United States. Louisiana is the least healthy state with a score of 1.32. Nearby Mississippi (1.46 health score), Alabama (2.08), Kentucky (2.15), West Virginia (2.18), Arkansas (2.22), and Oklahoma (2.24) are also found on end of list again.
At the other end of the spectrum, western states like Washington (8.4), Utah (7.94), Colorado (7.68), California (7.31), Oregon (7.29) join northeastern states like Massachusetts (8 .36), Vermont (7.94) and Connecticut (7.82), New York (7.57) and New Hampshire (7.5) as America’s healthiest.
The ten healthiest states in America
The Least Healthiest States in America
The report considered nine factors when compiling health metrics for each state: obesity rates, cigarette consumption, life expectancy, fitness class searches, number of adults who exercise regularly, binge drinking, how often residents ate fruits and vegetables, and the number of survey respondents, who said they were in excellent health.
Data from New Jersey was not included as NiceRx reports that it is not able to collect data from Garden State on multiple metrics.
While Washington was ranked as the healthiest state overall, it did not rank top in any single category. However, the evergreen state is in the top ten in almost every category.
Colorado, ranked the sixth healthiest state by the report, had the lowest obesity rate in the country at 24.2 percent. Massachusetts, second overall, had the second-lowest obesity rate — a hair behind at 24.4 percent.
Mississippi has the dubious honor of being America’s most obese state, with 39.7 percent of residents who are dangerously overweight.
The nine factors considered to determine how healthy a condition is:
Magnolia state is followed by nearby West Virginia (39.1 percent of the population is obese), Alabama (39 percent), and Louisiana (38.1 percent).
The same states are also found among those with the highest rates of cigarette consumption – with West Virginia (23.8 percent of adult residents smoke cigarettes), Kentucky (23.6 percent), Louisiana (21.9 percent), Mississippi (20.4 percent ), Arkansas (20.2 percent), Alabama (20.2 percent), and Tennessee (19.9 percent) are all among the top performers.
The most striking differences between the states arise from the life expectancy of the residents.
Californians and Hawaiians live the longest – with residents of both states living an average age of 80.9 years.
By comparison, a Mississippi resident lives a six-and-a-half year shorter life at 74.4 years. Like other metrics, many southern states such as West Virginia (74.5 median life years), Alabama (75.2), Kentucky (75.5), Tennessee (75.6), Louisiana (75.7), and Arkansas (75, 7) at the end again.
People living in the southern US are living shorter, less healthy lives is not an unknown phenomenon.
A 2018 report by Texas A&M points to a variety of factors. Southern states typically have fewer restrictions on tobacco and nicotine use in public, so rates can be higher.
Southern states are also generally considered less “walkable” because public transportation is limited and residents rely on cars.
As a result, all of the exercise and calorie burning that a person living in a place like New York City gets throughout the day is being replaced by sitting idle in the car.
The region also suffers from a massive shortage of GPs, along with higher uninsured rates.
Poverty is another important factor. Southern states generally have much higher poverty rates than their counterparts in the Northeast and along the West Coast.
Experts have long linked poverty to poorer cardiovascular health. A poorer person is more likely to eat poorly and be less likely to have regular access to a doctor.
They also may not be able to afford the medications needed to manage their health problems.
A 2019 National Institutes of Health report also states that many poorer people lead more stressful lives than their wealthier peers, which can have a massive impact on their health over time.