Strengths:

• Low prevalence of binge drinking
• Low violent crime rate

 

Challenges:

• High prevalence of obesity
• High prevalence of smoking
• High rate of cancer deaths
• High rate of preventable hospitalizations

 

Highlights:

• In the past five years, the rate of uninsured population increased from 13.0 percent to 15.4 percent of the population.
• In the past ten years, the percentage of children in poverty increased from 15.2 percent to 24.7 percent of persons under age 18.
• In the past year, diabetes decreased from 11.5 percent to 10.0 percent of the population. However, there are still 430,000 adults in Kentucky with diabetes.
• While smoking has decreased from 30.5 percent to 24.8 percent of adults in the past ten years, 1.1 million people still smoke in Kentucky.
• Almost 1.4 million adults in Kentucky are obese, 449,000 more individuals than 10 years ago.

 

Disparities:

• In Kentucky, obesity is more prevalent among non-Hispanic blacks at 43.2 percent than non-Hispanic whites at 31.0 percent. Diabetes also varies by race and ethnicity in the state; 14.9 percent of non-Hispanic blacks have diabetes compared to 10.1 percent of non-Hispanic whites.

 

State Health Department Web Site: www.chfs.ky.gov