News Articles

We at America’s Health Rankings® get truly excited when we think about the subtitle of our report: A Call to Action for Individuals and Their Communities. While we enjoy the process of assembling and communicating the data and drawing conclusions about the overall health of our nation and individual states, we never forget that our main purpose is to stimulate personally appropriate health behaviors and targeted community initiatives to improve health.

Across America, youth are making a huge difference in the fight against tobacco—the leading preventable cause of death in the United States. We’re educating each other about the dangers of tobacco, pushing back against tobacco marketing and calling on public officials to support tobacco prevention policies.

You’ve probably heard it before, but African Americans have a BIG problem with heart disease and America’s Health Rankings® proves this. While the report showed improvements in smoking cessation and cardiovascular deaths, it also shows that rates of obesity and smoking—two leading indicators of heart disease—among African American adults outpaces that of whites in the majority of states. Heart disease is the No. 1 killer of all American women, and African American women are at greater risk for heart disease than any other ethnic group.

Dr. Tuckson is absolutely right - we are clearly ALL in this together - health care providers, hospitals, government, public health agencies, communities, and individuals. As an activist friend of mine likes to say, "each one of us is grass root."

Today, we at United Health Foundation are pleased to release the 22nd Edition of America’s Health Rankings®: A Call to Action for Individuals and Their Communities. Published along with our partners at the American Public Health Association and Partnership for Prevention, America’s Health Rankings provides the longest-running state-by-state analysis of our country’s health and the factors that affect it.