Strengths:

• Low rate of preventable hospitalizations
• Lower prevalence of smoking than most other states
• Low levels of air pollution

 

Challenges:

• Low per capita public health funding
• High percentage of children in poverty
• High rate of uninsured population

 

Highlights:

• In the past five years, diabetes increased from 6.7 percent to 7.2 percent of adults. Now 278,000 Oregon adults have diabetes.
• In the past ten years, the rate of uninsured population increased from 12.7 percent to 16.8 percent.
• In the past year, obesity increased from 23.6 percent to 27.6 percent of adults, with 1.1 million obese adults in the state.
• In the past year, the rate of preventable hospitalizations decreased from 46.1 to 42.0 discharges per 1,000 Medicare enrollees.
• While smoking decreased from 20.7 percent to 15.1 percent of adults in the last ten years, 582,000 adults still smoke in Oregon.

 

Disparities:

• Diabetes varies by race and ethnicity in the state; 7.3 percent of non-Hispanic whites have diabetes compared to 6.6 percent of Hispanics. Hispanics and non-Hispanic whites have approximately the same prevalence of obesity at 25.4 percent and 25.3 percent, respectively.

 

State Health Department Web Site: http://public.health.oregon.gov/