Obesity, smoking, kids in poverty — all on rise in Ohio

Americans are no healthier now than they were last year, according to a report released today, and Ohioans specifically are a bit worse.

The state dropped three spots this year to 36th overall in the United Health Foundation’s annual state-by-state health rankings. Ohio echoed the nation’s trend toward more obesity, but it also had increases in smoking, childhood poverty and diabetes.

Health advocates in the state cite too little funding for both public health and educational programs as the culprit for the declining health ranking.

Ohio’s level of public-health funding — $45 a year per person — ranked among the lowest in the country, but state officials say more money isn’t the answer.

“Throwing money at this isn’t necessarily the solution,” said Dr. Ted Wymyslo, director of the Ohio Department of Health.

Rather than tackle individual health issues, the health department is working with the state Office of Health Transformation, which aims to consolidate the efforts of health-related government agencies, starting with Medicaid, he said.

The goal, Wymyslo said, should be to provide better care at lower cost to the taxpayer. He cited Minnesota as a model. Ranked as the nation’s sixth-healthiest state, Minnesota spent the same amount of money per person on public health as Ohio this year.

“They’re spending almost as little as we are but are doing well,” Wymyslo said, adding that Ohio is about seven years away from having a health-care system comparable to Minnesota’s.

But some health advocates say funding cuts are, in fact, the reason for Ohio’s declining health ranking — especially with regard to smoking.

Nationally, fewer and fewer Americans are lighting up — 17.3 percent of adults, according to today’s study. That’s the lowest level of adult smokers since the annual rankings began in 1990.

But not in Ohio, where, after years of decline, the percentage of adult Ohioans smoking increased to 22.5 percent this year from 20.3 percent last year.

“We’ve stopped investing in tobacco prevention in Ohio,” said Shelly Kiser, spokeswoman for the American Lung Association of Ohio.

A report released last week by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids ranked Ohio next to last in state spending on tobacco prevention. Although Ohio will take in

$1.2 billion in tobacco-generated revenue this year, the report said the state will not spend any money on tobacco prevention.

But Wymyslo said it’s inaccurate to say the state isn’t spending anything on tobacco prevention. He said that roughly $2.5 million in federal grant money and state cash carried over from last year was spent this year on anti-tobacco programming. An additional $785,000 was spent on a statewide hot line to help people quit smoking.

Ohio’s health figures also were weighed down by increasing levels of obesity, like the rest of the country.

Nationally, the prevalence of obesity has jumped 137 percent since 1990, with 27.5 percent of the population now obese. Ohio is even fatter, with 29.7 percent of the population obese, up from 21.5 percent in 2001.

“Obesity is a major challenge,” said Dr. Teresa Long, Columbus’ health commissioner. “Having a high percentage of both children and adults that are obese is a driver of the high rate of diabetes.”

The study found that Ohio’s rate of diabetes now sits at 10.1 percent, up from 7.7 percent in 2006 and ranked 39th in the country.

“We absolutely need to increase the public-health funding,” Long said.

The recession also is at fault for the state’s declining health, said Cathy Levine, executive director of the Universal Health Care Action Network of Ohio.

The report found that the number of children in Ohio living below the poverty line rose more than 4 percentage points in the past year, from 18.7 percent last year to 22.9 percent this year.

“As long as people are poor, you’re going to see declining health status,” Levine said. She added, however, that the impact of public-health funding cuts cannot be overstated.

“It’s a reflection of the problems people are having that aren’t medical, and it is a reflection of our failure to invest in evidence-based public-health strategies.”