The Rankings

Georgia

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Strengths:

• Low prevalence of binge drinking
• High immunization coverage
• Moderate use of early prenatal care

Challenges:

• Low high school graduation rate
• High levels of air pollution
• High rate of uninsured population

Highlights:

• While smoking has decreased from 22.1 percent to 17.6 percent of the adult population in the past five years, nearly 1.3 million adults still smoke in Georgia.
• Almost 2.2 million adults in Georgia are obese, 894,000 more adults than 10 years ago.
• In the past five years, the violent crime rate decreased from 446 to 403 offenses per 100,000 population.
• In the past ten years, diabetes increased from 6.8 percent to 9.7 percent of the adult population, increasing the number of adults with diabetes in the state to 698,000.
• In the past ten years, the percentage of children in poverty increased from 16.4 percent to 24.7 percent of persons under age 18.

Health Disparities:

In Georgia, obesity is more prevalent among non-Hispanic blacks at 38.1 percent than non-Hispanic whites at 25.6 percent. Diabetes also varies by race and ethnicity in the state; 12.8 percent of non-Hispanic blacks have diabetes compared to 8.4 percent of non-Hispanic whites.

State Health Department Web Site: www.health.state.ga.us