Kelly Dickerson
America’s Health Rankings just released their annual report, which analyzes the nation’s health every year and ranks the states from healthiest to unhealthiest. You can check out the 10 healthiest states and the 10 unhealthiest states in the U.S.
But the report also looks at the overall health of the nation. These seven charts compare data from 2001 to 2013. We’ve made great strides in some health areas like smoking rates, but we’ve experienced some shocking backslides in other areas, like child poverty rates.
1. Smoking has been on a pretty steady decline. The break in the chart at the 2012-2013 period happens because America’s Health Rankings changed the way it measures smoking rates, so the data is not directly comparable to the earlier years, but still seems to have a downward direction.