by Shideh Kerman, B.S., MBA
How healthy are Coloradans in comparison to the rest of the nation? Better grades for children, less so for seniors.
This year’s Colorado health report card was released on Feb. 16, 2016. The Colorado Health Foundation has published the Colorado Health Report Card yearly since 2006. The study provides a benchmark for measuring progress on some of our state’s most important health issues across 38 key health parameters, which are measured through five life stages such as healthy beginnings, healthy children, healthy adolescents, healthy adults and healthy aging.
It offers a glimpse into where Colorado is making headway to becoming a healthier state and critical areas that still need improvement.
In the “Healthy Beginnings” category, which looks at indicators such as prenatal care and childhood vaccination rates, Colorado improved from last year from a C to C+. The main reasons for the bump are an increase in preschool vaccination rates, and decreases in infant mortality and the percentage of expectant moms who don’t get prenatal care.
For the first time since the report card rankings came out, Colorado cracked the top 10 for women receiving timely prenatal care saying only 11 percent now wait until their third trimester for medical care or skip it altogether. The state placed sixth this year up from 41st in 2008.
The state’s children got just a bit healthier last year but still couldn’t muster better than a C+. The reason is we dropped from 14.1 percent of children being uninsured in 2007 to only five percent of children in Colorado who are uninsured today. Decreases in the percentage of children without health insurance had a major effect on improving children’s health. There was little change on the other four indicators, which looked at obesity, physical activity, dental health and medical care.
Teenagers are leading the way toward a healthier Colorado. Teen pregnancies are at a record low in Colorado, with many teenagers reporting they use of protection during sex.
Among teens, “the percentage who were sexually active reached a high of 31.8 percent in 2013, but fell to 23.3 percent in 2016, the lowest rate in the nation,” the report said.
On a related measure, Colorado has nearly halved its teen birth rate in the past decade. Colorado now ranks 18th in the nation, up from 36th.
Now for the bad news: Adults lost their number one spot for most physically active residents, coming in second to Oregon. Colorado adults also lost the nation’s top ranking for diabetes, falling to fourth, as the percentage with the disease rose to 5.3 from 4.5.
Colorado’s seniors grade declined a bit from last year from a A- to B+. Our seniors still score well compared with seniors across the nation but we didn’t do well in areas of receiving the recommended immunizations and flu shots and having a personal doctor.
“Overall, Colorado’s health has improved in the last decade,” said Michele Lueck, the health institute’s president. “We seem to be doing better in the categories of healthy babies and healthy kids.”
Those are among the 10 top achievements cited by the report.
Colorado has tackled arguably its biggest issue by cutting the rate of uninsured residents by more than half from 2013 to 2015. But now it’s time for our officials to turn their attention to the areas that we need improvement like lack of access faced by even the insured to certain services or educating our children to overcome obesity.