 Study Shows 3rd Year in row Louisiana is the
Unhealthiest state in the nation.
The
United Health Foundation is a private, nonprofit health information
organization. It based its report on data from federal agencies.
They have created this report since 1990, and this years findings is
the 3rd year in a row that Louisiana was dead last. We must
move forward together to improve treatment, prevention, and access
to healthcare resources in this state.
Louisiana is 50th this year.
It has been last for the past three years and
its score continues to drop. It is now 23.9 percent below the
national average. The state is 19th for adequacy of prenatal care,
which is available to 78.6 percent of pregnant women.
Its challenges are numerous as it is in the
bottom five states on seven of the 17 measures and in the bottom 10
on eight additional measures.
Disparity is also a challenge as only 67.7
percent of pregnant black women receive adequate care as compared to
86.7 percent of pregnant white women.
In the past year, the uninsured population
decreased from 22.5 percent to 19.3 percent of the population and
violent crime decreased from 733 to 681 offenses per 100,000
population.
Since 1990, the prevalence of smoking has
declined from 29.1 percent to 24.6 percent of the population;
however this is not as rapid as in the rest of the nation.
Louisiana, however, has been able to improve its adequacy of
prenatal care more rapidly that other states, rising from 67.0
percent of pregnant women receiving adequate care in 1990 to 78.6
percent in 2002.
National Study, All
State Rankings
Study ranks La. 49th among states in social health
By The Associated Press
NEW ORLEANS -- Louisiana's high dropout rates,
unemployment and child poverty, and its low health insurance
coverage are among a slew of reasons it is next-to-last in a new
state-by-state study of social health.
Louisiana was No. 48 in the first such survey released by the
Institute for Innovation in Social Policy at Fordham University. The
Bayou State switched places this year with Mississippi, No. 49 last
year.
"This is a study that tells us what we already know and what
we've been working on," said Marsanne Golsby, spokeswoman for Gov.
Mike Foster. "Everything the governor has done for the last eight
years has been about trying to address all of the issues that are
raised," she said.
The institute looks at 16 "social indicators" such as food stamp
coverage, average wages, unemployment and poverty among children and
among the elderly. Total scores can range from 1 to 100; Iowa, at
72.5, led the nation and Louisiana got a 27.9.
In addition, each state is ranked for each indicator and graded
for that category according to which fifth it falls into. Louisiana
had nine "F's," more than any state but New Mexico, which had 12.
"There were three indicators that seemed to drive this thing" --
child poverty, health insurance coverage for families, and the
high-school completion rate, said Marc Maringoff, director of the
institute.
"We've seen that when those things get better, they carry a lot
more indicators with them than the others," he said. "If whatever is
available could be put into some of those, it would help a lot over
time."
In Louisiana, high-school graduates made up 82.1 percent of the
people ages 18 to 24 who were not in high school between 1997 and
1999. That put it 45th in the country, ahead of only Alabama,
Colorado, Texas, Nevada and Arizona. Maine led the nation at 94.5
percent.
"If the next governor keeps doing what Mike Foster has done
you'll see these rankings eventually increase," Golsby said. "We've
had a lot quicker improvement in other areas -- particularly test
scores -- than we even expected."
Only New Mexico had more children under the age of 18 living in
poverty -- 26.2 percent to Louisiana's 24.5 percent. Maryland led
the nation, with 6.6 percent.
Texas and New Mexico were the only states with a higher
percentage of people under the age of 65 without health insurance.
That figure is 23.45 percent for Louisiana, 24.75 for Texas and
28.15 percent for New Mexico; Rhode Island is No. 1, at 7.5.
Louisiana has nearly doubled the number of poor or low-income
children insured by Medicaid and the state's LaCHIP program since
1998, state health department spokesman Bob Johannessen said.
Louisiana's other F's were unemployment, alcohol traffic deaths,
infant mortality, income inequality -- the ratio between total
incomes for the top and bottom fifths of the population, homicides
and people over the age of 65 living in poverty.
The state did get two A's: it was No. 5 in average wages, at just
over $662 a week, for people who do have jobs and don't work on
farms; and No. 7 in the percentage of eligible households getting
food stamps.
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