Hawaii Is the Healthiest State for Seniors But mental health, excessive drinking and obesity challenges persist nationwide, the new rankings find.
THE ALOHA STATE IS THE healthiest for seniors in America, according to a new report.
The United Health Foundation’s 2019 America’s Health Rankings provides an “annual snapshot of health of a population of each state relative to the other states,” assessing statewide predispositions to disease; healthy behaviors; the community and environment in which people live; clinical care; and public and health policies as well as practices to improve health care and instill preventative actions.
These “aspects interact with each other in a complex web of cause and effect to create the healthy outcomes we desire, including a long, disease-free, robust life for all individuals regardless of race, gender or socioeconomic status,” according to the rankings website.
Each of the 50 states was analyzed across 34 measures of health, including factors such as smoking habits, affordability of health care services and risk of social isolation, to create the senior health state rankings, the report said.
Nearly 50 million adults aged 65 years and older were living in the U.S. in 2016, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. By 2025, the federal agency projects this age group will grow to more than 65 million.
“There are 11 million more young seniors than there were in 2002,” with young seniors – those between the ages of 65 and 74 – representing 9.1% of the overall U.S. population, the study said – a rise from 6.4% in 2002.
And there’s hope for those seniors 75 and older wishing to remain at home or in their communities to receive care, as the number of home health and personal care aides has increased 44% in the past six years, the report said, with about 550,000 more home health care workers across the U.S. in 2019 than in 2018. Hospice care also saw a 48% increase from 2013, rising from 36.7% to 54.4% of Medicare decedents ages 65 and older who were enrolled during their last six months of life.
In addition, seniors face lower levels of food insecurity and increased access to programs such as the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in 2019 than in previous years, the report noted.
Yet mental health care for those 65 and older remains a notable challenge to address going forward, according to the report. Diagnoses of depression increased 19% between 2018 and 2019, and nearly 4 million seniors – about 8% of the senior population – reported frequent mental distress, meaning poor mental health during 14 or more of the last 30 days. Females were 1.3 times more likely to experience frequent mental distress and 1.5 times more likely to be diagnosed with depression than their male counterparts, the report found, while males were six times more likely to die by suicide.
Excessive drinking, obesity, diabetes, suicide and the inability to afford health care remain critical areas in need of improvement for seniors as well, the report said.
The United Health Foundation and the Gerontological Advanced Practice Nurses Association collaborated to develop this year’s report.
