National Healthcare Measures: A lot of Improvement Overshadowed By Obesity and Diabetes

By Clive Riddle, March 16, 2017 On this Ides of March the CDC National Center for Health Statistics released Selected Estimates Based on Data From the January-September 2017 National Health Interview Survey with great data covering measures fifteen different selected topics. We selected a key statistic from ten of the topics to share below. What’s striking is that despite our marked improvement in most topics during the past two decades, the percentage of persons reporting they had excellent health didn’t improve (although half a percentage point better than ten years ago, it is two percentage points lower than twenty years ago.) The culprits in the case must be due in a large part to the fact we living large(er). Two topics below in which increasing percentages aren’t a good thing are obesity and diabetes, but increase we did. We can make policy and administrative changes that impact the percentage of people with insurance, access  care, receive vaccinations, promote exercise and promote smoking cessation. Obesity and Diabetes seem  tougher to tackle. ·         Percentage of persons without health insurance coverage: 2017  9.0% | 2007 14.5% | 1997 15.4% ·         Percentage of Persons With a Usual Place to go for Medical Care (Age adjusted):  2017  88.1% | 2007 86.5% | 1997 86.3% ·         Percentage of persons of all ages who failed to obtain needed medical care due to cost at some time during the past 12 months (Age Adjusted): 2017 4.4% | 2007 5.8% | 1997 4.5% ·         Percentage of adults aged 65+ who received an influenza vaccination during the past 12 months (Age Adjusted):  2017 70.6% | 2007 66.8% | 1997 63.1% ·         Percentage of adults aged 65 and over who had ever received a pneumococcal vaccination (Age Adjusted):  2017 69.9% | 2007 57.8% | 1997 42.6% ·         Prevalence of obesity among adults aged 20 and over (Age Adjusted):  2017 31.4% | 2007 26.6% | 1997 19.5% ·         Percentage of adults aged 18 and over who met 2008 federal physical activity guidelines for aerobic activity through leisure-time aerobic activity (Age Adjusted):  2017 54.8% | 2007 42.0% | 1997 43.3% ·         Prevalence of current cigarette smoking among adults aged 18 and over (Age Adjusted):  2017 14.3% | 2007 19.7% | 1997 24.6% ·         Percentage of persons of all ages who had excellent or very good health:  2017 66.5% | 2007 66.0% | 1997 68.5% ·         Prevalence of diagnosed diabetes among adults aged 18 and over: (Age Adjusted):  2017 8.4% | 2007 7.5% | 1997 5.3%