Together with the American Public Health Association and Partnership
for Prevention, the National Center for Health Statistics, the American Medical
Association and the Census Bureau, they considered the major measures of
wellness such as rates of obesity, infant mortality, cancer death, high school graduation
and cardiovascular disease.
For example, 62.6 percent of pregnant women in
In the same report, the number of cardiovascular deaths
declined from 409 per 100,000 of population in 1990 to 287.9 per 100,000 in
2007. The same thing happened to the number of cancer deaths, which declined
from 209.2 per 100,000 in 1990 to 195.4 this year.
The number of people who smoke tobacco also diminished from 30.7 percent in 1990 to 18 percent in 2007.
"In the last several years, we have taken extraordinary, even historic,
steps toward achieving our goals of providing universal access to affordable
health insurance for all Vermonters, improving quality and containing costs,
and promoting healthy behavior and disease prevention across the entire life
span through the chronic care initiative," Gov. Jim Douglas said.
"Our responsible, commonsense reforms are improving our health care system, aggressively contain costs, extending coverage to those currently without it and helping to make Vermont the healthiest state in the country," Douglas added.
"Even though specific mortality rates have improved, this report shows there are still many people who, through unhealthy personal behaviors, adverse community environments and difficult access to care, are vulnerable to a future life of poor health — which is essentially preventable. The consequence of this reality manifests itself in a poor quality of life, people living with chronic disease, compromised productivity and significant escalation in the costs associated with managing chronic illness," Dr. Reed Tuckson, member of the board of United Health Foundation said in a news release, Fox News reports.
Commissioner of