2007 report on women’s health in U.S.: Unsatisfactory

by William Atkins

Friday, 19 October 2007

The 2007 edition of “Making the Grade on Women’s Health” by the National Women’s Law Center gives a state by state ranking of the health of women across the United States. It's not good!

The full report, called “Making the Grade on Women’s Health: A National and State-by-State Report Card,” is found on the National Women’s Law Center website: http://hrc.nwlc.org/.

Its major statement is that the country is “not meeting the health needs of America’s women.”

Its two primary conclusions are: “First, for the bulk of indicators of the status of women's health, the nation as a whole and the individual states are falling further behind in their quest to reach national goals for women's health. Significant improvements are needed for the nation to meet key health objectives by 2010. Health objectives set for the nation by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Healthy People 2010 agenda provide a roadmap for assessing the status of women's health. Overall, the nation continues to be so far from the Healthy People and related goals that it receives a general grade of "unsatisfactory."

The conclusions in the report were based on four categories: (1) women’s access to health care services including access and affordability of such services, (2) wellness and prevention, such as screening tests and preventive care, (3) key health conditions such as diseases, chronic conditions, mental health, violence against women, and causes of death for women, and (4) living in a healthy community (whether a community fosters good health or not).

The healthiest states for women in the United States are (in order): 1. Vermont, 2. Minnesota, 3. Massachusetts, 4. Connecticut, and 5. New Hampshire.

Even though these five states are at the top of all the states in the United States, no state received an overall grade of "S", for satisfactory.

The least healthy states (including the District of Columbia) for women are (in order): 51. Mississippi, 50. Louisiana, 49. Arkansas, 48. Oklahoma, and 47. West Virginia.

Overall, as a nation, the United States received a “U” for unsatisfactory. It met only three benchmarks out of a total of twenty-seven benchmarks. These benchmarks are getting mammograms regularly, dental visits regularly, and screenings for colorectal cancer over the age of 50 years.

As indicative of many recent studies on obesity (how fat we are) in the United States, all fifty states and the District of Columbia declined in the benchmark for obesity (in other words, on average, women gained more weight).

The key finding of the report and the rankings of all states within the United States, please go to: http://hrc.nwlc.org/Key-Findings.aspx.

The National Women's Law center is based in Washington, D.C.

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