Strengths:

• Low prevalence of smoking
• Low rate of uninsured population
• Lower prevalence of obesity than most other states
• Ready availability of primary care physicians

 

Challenges:

• High prevalence of binge drinking
• High rate of preventable hospitalizations

 

Highlights:

• In the past five years, smoking decreased from 18.1 percent to 14.1 percent of adults. However, 935,000 adults still smoke.
• In the past ten years, diabetes increased from 5.8 percent to 7.4 percent of the adult population. There are now over 491,000 adults with diabetes in the state.
• In the past ten years, obesity increased from 16.8 percent to 23.6 percent of adults, with 1.6 million people now obese.
• In the past year, the percentage of children in poverty decreased from 16.7 percent to 12.6 percent of persons under age 18.

 

Disparities:

• In Massachusetts, obesity is more prevalent among non-Hispanic blacks at 30.5 percent than non-Hispanic whites at 21.8 percent. Diabetes also varies by race and ethnicity in the state; 11.1 percent of non-Hispanic blacks have diabetes compared to 7.1 percent of non-Hispanic whites and 9.3 percent Hispanics.

 

State Health Department Web Site: www.mass.gov/dph