Strengths:

• Low prevalence of binge drinking
• Low rate of uninsured population
• Low geographic disparity within the state

 

Challenges:

• Low per capita public health funding
• High levels of air pollution
• High prevalence of smoking

 

Highlights:

• In the past five years, the rate of preventable hospitalizations decreased from 83.2 to 76.0 discharges per 1,000 Medicare enrollees.
• In the past ten years, the percentage of children in poverty more than doubled from 10.8 percent to 23.6 percent of persons under age 18.
• In the past year, the number of infectious disease cases rose from 7.8 to 11.7 cases per 100,000 population.
• Indiana has one of the highest prevalence of smoking in the U.S., with more than 1.25 million adults smoking.
• More than a half million adults in Indiana have diabetes and more than 1.5 million adults are obese.
• Although Indiana has one of the lowest amounts of public health funding in the U.S., it has increased from $33 to $44 per person over the past five years.

 

Disparities:

• In Indiana, smoking is more prevalent among non-Hispanic blacks at 30.8 percent than non-Hispanic whites at 21.4 percent and Hispanics at 20.1 percent; and obesity is more prevalent among non-Hispanic blacks at 37.2 percent than non-Hispanic whites at 29.7 percent.

 

State Health Department Web Site: www.in.gov/isdh