Our state of health: any hope in Indiana's bleak rankings?

• Author: Tricker, Jennifer
• Position: Health Care

How healthy are Hoosiers? The statistics aren't pretty.

According to a United Health Foundation report, Indiana dropped five spots in 2004 on the organization's national ranking of states' health, from 27th in 2003 to a tie with Delaware in 32nd place. The rankings are based on a compilation of health factors, and the ones that are hurting Indiana the most are its high rates of obesity and smoking prevalence. Indiana's poor health has a measurable fiscal impact, causing steeper health-care costs, lower productivity and higher rates of absenteeism.

Bob Teclaw, state epidemiologist with the Indiana State Department of Health, says the state is plagued by four major health-care concerns: cardiovascular disease, cancer, stroke and diabetes. "All of these maladies can be linked to factors in diet, obesity, smoking and lack of exercise," he says. "We in Indiana are failing to promote health, as evidenced by the rate of incidence of these diseases."

But Teclaw is hopeful, comparing the present health situation with an earlier environmental concern: littering. "At a point in our recent past, littering was commonplace, but with new messages instilled in the public mind, pushing a move to clean up our streets and take responsibility people are now much less inclined to pitch debris out of their car window." Similarly, he says, smoking and obesity are beginning to become socially unacceptable.

No butts about it. "Smoking kills 10,300 Hoosiers annually" says Stephen Jay, chairman of the Indiana University School of Medicine Department of Public Health in Indianapolis.

Karla Sneegas, executive director of the Indiana Tobacco Prevention and Cessation Agency in Indianapolis, believes her organization is doing something about it. In 2001, the ITPC was created out of monies awarded Indiana as part of the tobacco settlement of the late 1990s. Programs were up and running in 2002 and in a few short years, she says, it has already seen tremendous impact.

"There are efforts in every county, so there is always a place to go for help," says Sneegas, "whether it's counseling, information, nicotine-replacement therapies or other pharmacological products."

"Smoking is a monumental problem, but we are taking steps in the right direction," Sneegas says. According to the ITPC, since 2002 the consumption of cigarettes has declined by 18.5 percent, which means that the high number of Hoosier smokers are at least smoking less.

There has also been a marked decrease in...