Minnesota deemed healthiest state, Louisiana worst

By Will Dunham Tue Dec 5, 3:07 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Minnesota was deemed the healthiest U.S. state for the fourth year in a row, while Louisiana slumped into last place as the least healthy in annual state-by-state rankings released by on Tuesday.

Vermont placed second as it did in 2005 with New Hampshire, Hawaii and Connecticut rounding out the five healthiest states in the report by the United Health Foundation, a nonprofit group formed by health care company UnitedHealth Group.

They were followed in order by Utah, Massachusetts, North Dakota, Maine and Wisconsin.

Louisiana dropped to 50th from 49th last year. The others in the bottom 10 included last year's cellar-dweller Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Georgia and Florida.

The report weighed a series of factors in determining rankings, such as prevalence of obesity, smoking, infectious disease, cardiovascular deaths, infant mortality, child poverty, immunization rates, workplace deaths and auto deaths.

Southern states performed particularly poorly while those in New England and some in the Upper Midwest fared well.

Minnesota has been ranked No. 1 in 11 of the 17 annual reports issued since 1990. The report said Minnesota stayed on top thanks to ranking best in the key categories of fewest residents without health insurance and lowest cardiovascular deaths and premature deaths.

Louisiana, parts of which were slammed by Hurricane Katrina last year, has been among the bottom two states every year the report has been issued. It placed among the bottom five states in six key categories: obesity, workplace deaths, child poverty, infant mortality, cancer deaths and premature deaths.

The United States as a whole experienced a slight rise in health over last year, the report stated, but lags behind many other nations in key measures such as infant mortality.

The health of the United States has improved by about 19 percent since the initial 1990 report, said Dr. Reed Tuckson, senior vice president of the United Health Foundation.

"Since 1990, America is a healthier place. The bad news: since the year 2000, we've made very little progress. The health of the nation has become stagnant," Tuckson said.

Tuckson cited a dramatic increase in obesity, a rising number of Americans -- 46.6 million in a country of 300 million -- without health insurance, and smoking by 21 percent of U.S. adults, lower than many countries but still problematic.

States making the most improvement in the past year were Illinois, Ohio, Wisconsin and Kansas, the report found, while those with the biggest declines were New Mexico, Idaho and West Virginia.