Strengths:

• High per capita public health funding
• Low incidence of infectious disease
• Low prevalence of binge drinking

 

Challenges:

• High prevalence of smoking and obesity
• Limited access to early prenatal care
• Limited availability of primary care physicians

 

Highlights:

• In the past five years, diabetes increased from 8.9 percent to 10.4 percent of adults. Now 387,000 Oklahoma adults have diabetes.
• In the past ten years, obesity increased from 19.7 percent to 31.3 percent of adults, with 1.2 million obese adults in Oklahoma.
• In the past year, the percentage of children in poverty increased from 20.3 percent to 25.0 percent of persons under age 18.
• In the past year, the rate of preventable hospitalizations decreased from 88.7 to 81.8 discharges per 1,000 Medicare enrollees.
• Smoking is virtually unchanged in the past ten years at 23.7 percent of adults; 883,000 adults still smoke in Oklahoma.

 

Disparities:

• In Oklahoma, obesity is more prevalent among non-Hispanic American Indians at 40.0 percent and non-Hispanic blacks at 41.3 percent than among non-Hispanic whites at 29.7 percent and Hispanics at 30.3 percent. Diabetes also varies by race and ethnicity in the state; 15.1 percent of non-Hispanic American Indians have diabetes compared to 9.4 percent of non-Hispanic whites.

 

State Health Department Web Site: www.ok.gov/health