Strengths:

• Low percentage of children in poverty
• Low violent crime rate
• Ready access to early prenatal care

 

Challenges:

• High levels of air pollution
• High prevalence of smoking
• Low immunization coverage

 

Highlights:

• In the past five years, diabetes increased from 6.9 percent to 8.7 percent of the population. Now 692,000 Virginia adults have diabetes.
• In the past ten years, obesity increased from 18.2 percent to 26.4 percent of adults, with 2.1 million obese adults in the state.
• In the past year, binge drinking increased from 13.6 percent to 15.3 percent of adults.
• In the past year, the percentage of children in poverty decreased from 14.8 percent to 12.3 percent of persons under age 18.
• While smoking decreased from 21.4 percent to 18.5 percent of adults in the last ten years, this is a much smaller reduction than other states and 1.5 million adults still smoke in Virginia.

 

Disparities:

• In Virginia, obesity is more prevalent among non-Hispanic blacks at 37.2 percent than non-Hispanic whites at 25.2 percent and Hispanics at 25.1 percent. Diabetes also varies by race and ethnicity in the state; 13.0 percent of non-Hispanic blacks have diabetes compared to 8.0 percent of non-Hispanic whites and only 3.7 percent of Hispanics.

 

State Health Department Web Site: www.vdh.state.va.us