US Health Gains Stalled

America’s Health Rankings report, issued at the American Public Health Association’s annual meeting, shows that US health gains has stalled in the last five years as more and more Americans are overweight and fewer quit smoking. It also shows that 23.1 percent of the US population is considered obese.

It also found that while the number of smokers has fallen by almost a third since 1990 to the current level of 20.8 percent of the population, most of that decline came in the early 1990s with no significant drop between 1993 and 2003.

The report, combining 18 health indicators including smoking, infant mortality and immunization coverage, shows that while U.S. overall health improved by an average of 1.5 percent a year during the 1990s, the rate of increase has slowed to just 0.3 percent since 2000.

Tobacco use remains the biggest preventable cause of premature death in the United States, resulting in some 440,000 deaths from a variety of diseases each year, the report said.

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