Vermont named healthiest state for seniors
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* Hannah d’Entremont

Vermont has been named the healthiest state for seniors, according to a recent report.

According to “America’s Health Rankings Senior Report: A Call to Action for Individuals and Their Communities,” released in May, Vermont was followed by New Hampshire, Minnesota, Hawaii and Utah as the healthiest state for seniors, factoring health indicators such as obesity, physical activity, food insecurity and poverty.

Vermont topped the list thanks to its positive health outcomes, but also because of other health indicators, including a decrease in alcohol consumption, availability of home-delivered meals and its Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program enrollment, the highest in the nation, according to a news release from the Vermont Department of Health.

“Vermont’s seniors should be congratulated for doing a lot of things well to stay healthy, such as low rates of physical inactivity (and) hospital readmissions,” said Vermont Health Commissioner Harry Chen, MD, in the news release. “Half of all our seniors rank their health as either very good or excellent. As always, there are also areas we need to improve, such as a high prevalence of chronic drinking, low hospice care use and a high rate of falls.”

Nationwide, the report called a few aspects of senior health “heartening.” For example, hip fractures have decreased by 15 percent over the past year, dropping from 7.3 to 6.2 hospitalizations per 100,000 Medicare beneficiaries.

The America’s Health Rankings report also listed the unhealthiest states for seniors. Louisiana topped the list due to lack of flu vaccination readiness, lack of home health care providers and high rates of smoking, obesity and physical inactivity. The unhealthiest states following Louisiana were Mississippi, Kentucky and Arizona.

According to the report, about 33 percent of seniors nationwide are not currently active, as compared to about 30 percent in 2013. In 2015, 26.7 percent of seniors are obese, an increase from 25.3 percent in 2013. Currently, 9.5 percent of seniors live in poverty, an increase from 9.3 percent in 2013. And today, 14.8 percent of seniors deal with food insecurity, increasing from 13.6 percent in 2013.

According to the report, one in seven Americans is 65 or older. By the year 2050, U.S. adults 65 and older are expected to increase to 83.7 million, nearly double the senior population of 2012. With the large increase in the senior population, report authors suggested the U.S. may see a surge in need in the health care system at both the state and national levels.

To read the report, visit [www.americashealthrankings.org/reports/senior](http://www.americashealthrankings.org/reports/senior).

*   Copyright The Nation’s Health, American Public Health Association