Sidebar: Miserable in Mississippi

Earlier this year I posted about the curious trends noticeable in health statistics collected for the “Ten Most Healthy” as compared to the “Ten Least Healthy” states. The chart I originally posted listing the states may be more difficult to read, so I decided to average it together and here is what I came up with:

The Ten “Most Healthy” states are, in order: Vermont, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Utah, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Idaho, Maine and Washington. The Ten “Least Healthy” states are Lousiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Florida, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Nevada and Georgia. There may be some argument over how “red” or “blue” the states are, but it should be pretty obvious, especially in the case of the “Least Healthy”, that the red states predominate.

Sometimes I think this is something Liberals and Democrats aren’t considering. If I was a Democratic congressperson, I’d be on the floor of congress with bigger, more colorful graphs and asking those in Republican strongholds such as South Carolina, Texas, and Oklahoma why their policies have not resulted in healthier, more insured constituencies, and why in the hell do they have to take more Federal money than they send back. I might even ask the Congressional Budget Office, if I had that power, to calculate the costs of having a 39% higher incidence of diabetes, more obesity, more deaths from heart disease and cancer in those states, especially given the fact that more of these people go without health insurance.

On the positive side, there are better job opportunities (or opportunities to “make a living”) in the “unhealthy” states, and there is less personal debt, less than half the debt on average, than those in the healthy states. It should be noted almost every “Least Healthy” state was a “right to work (for less)” state, while most of the “Healthier” states were not. Which basically might mean that you probably can’t get as much credit with a lower-paying job (in a “least healthy” state), so you don’t get into as much debt.

You also have a greater likelihood of being on food stamps in the least healthy states. The top four states for least healthy had a ratio of 1 in 5 people using food stamps; the national average is 1 in 8. While it might support the theory that there is a correlation between food stamps and obesity, it also says that having greater opportunities for employment doesn’t necessarily connect to not having to resort to food stamps or even good nutrition.

Going along with the “healthy” is “peaceful”—a measure of “absence of violence.” The source for this, however, has a disclaimer as far as “red” or “blue” states, even though seven of the same states for “most healthy” appear in the “most peaceful” list and eight of the states for “least healthy” are listed as “least peaceful”:

And despite what you may think, with all the mass public protests going on around the country in the last couple of years, the index claims that America is getting more peaceful as a whole, with neither Republican nor Democratic states having any sort of an advantage over each other.

Conservative critics may also point to state (bond) debt, which is considerably higher in the “blue” states, but this has been a fairly recent event due to economics and the real estate market crash. On the other hand, maybe those states with budget deficits, if “blue”, should ask to have their “Federal revenues versus outlays” evened up, since the “red” states seem to take more than they give back.

Another social issue of interest is teenage pregnancy: the least healthy states have the highest rates, while the healthiest states have the lowest:

The reason for this is pretty obvious, however: the least healthy states have much greater abortion restrictions. As noted by Guttmacher, one of the only sources of abortion statistics:

Even though abortions have been tabulated according to state of residence where possible, in states with parental notification or consent requirements for minors, the pregnancy and abortion rates may be too low because minors have traveled to other states for abortion services, and the rates in neighboring states may be too high.

So where does this all leave us? If it was me and I was advising a young person, I guess I’d say learn a skill that has some value and live in a blue state. You’ll probably be paid better, have better benefits, and live a healthier, more peaceful life. But sorry Haley Barbour-- you’ll definitely be miserable in Mississippi.