America’s Health Rankings Senior Report

The United Health Foundation released the 2018 America’s Health Rankings Senior Report. Now in its sixth year, the 2018 report found seniors living in rural areas fare differently across key markers of health compared to their urban and suburban peers.

Among the 2018 report’s key findings:

• Rural seniors experience health disparities across a wide range of measures:
  • More seniors are physically inactive in rural areas;
  • Seniors living in rural areas are 7% less likely to receive the flu vaccination; and
  • Significantly more seniors report falls in rural areas (32.4% compared to 28.5% suburban and 29.5% of urban seniors).
     
• The 2018 report highlights two measures — the suicide rate among seniors as well as a new measure to identify locations where seniors are at higher risk of social isolation.
  • Across the nation, suicide amongst seniors increased 12% since 2014.
  • Seniors at risk of social isolation reside in less healthy states.

• Utah is the new healthiest state for seniors, followed by Hawaii (No. 2), New Hampshire (No. 3), Minnesota (No. 4) and Colorado (No. 5). All these states ranked in the top five in 2017, showing consistency in the healthiest cohort. The states with the greatest opportunities for improving senior health are Louisiana (No. 50), Mississippi (No. 49), Kentucky (No. 48), Arkansas (No. 47) and Oklahoma (No. 46).
   
• The report also highlights states that have made the greatest movements since the first Senior Report was released in 2013.
  • Rhode Island improved 22 ranks from No. 30 to No. 8. Rhode Island is followed by Alaska and Utah, which improved 17 and 9 ranks, respectively.
  • Arizona has experienced the greatest decline, falling 13 ranks from No. 18 to No. 31 over the past five years. Vermont, Kansas and Nebraska have also had large ranking changes, declining 11, 9 and 9 ranks, respectively.  

Please refer to the America’s Health Rankings Website for additional state level information.