Ohio near bottom in health rankings

The ranking reflects a lack of progress on several core health measures.

The number of adult Ohio smokers, for example, remained unchanged from last year at about 23 percent of the adult population, or more than 2 million Ohioans who continue to smoke regularly, researchers found. Ohio’s smoking rate is significantly higher than the national average of about 19 percent, according to the report, and is a major cause of premature deaths, cancer and heart disease in the state.

The rate of obesity in Ohio also was essentially unchanged from last year at 30.4 percent and slightly higher than the national rate of 29.4 percent. The high rate of obesity can be tied to many Ohioans’ tendency to be couch potatoes: More than 2.2 million Ohio adults, about one in four, remained physically inactive last year, according to the report.

A lack of physical activity and obesity are major risk factors for diabetes. And while the number of Ohioans diagnosed with diabetes or pre-diabetes showed a marginal decline from about 12 percent last year to 10 percent this year, the rate is still higher than the national rate of 9.6 percent.

In addition to the core measures, Ohio faces numerous other challenges to improving its health profile, including an increasing number of drug-related deaths, and a high infant mortality rate.

In the past year, drug deaths increased by 25 percent from 14 to 17.5 deaths per 100,000 population, reflecting the ongoing prescription drug and heroin epidemic that has hit Ohio especially hard. And Ohio now ranks 46th out of 50 states for infant mortality, with an average of 7.7 deaths per 1,000 live births, down from 9.9 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2013.

Part of the problem is that although Ohio ranks high in terms of total health spending, the number of state and federal federal dollars dedicated to public health is about half the national average at $45 million, according to the report.

“It’s been recognized by Public Health – Dayton & Montgomery County for a long time that funding from the state of Ohio and even federal authorities is not going to be sufficient to carry out the activities that we would like to implement,” said Health Commissioner Jim Gross.