Source: United Health Foundation
Latest Data: 2024
Frequency: Annual
Contact: LD Platt, (202)654-8830, ld_platt@uhg.com

The 2019 America’s Health Rankings® Senior Report provides a comprehensive analysis of senior population health on a national and state-by-state basis across 34 measures of senior health. 

The "Health Ranking" is determined by four categories: behaviors, community & environment, policy and clinical care. The methodology for scoring and ranking the states is described as follows on page 130 of the report:

"The ranking is a composite index of all core measures included in the report. Tables 2, 4 and 6 list the core measures that comprise each of the three annual state rankings. For each measure, the most recent state-level data are presented as the value. The most current data available as of approximately two months prior to report release date are included in the analysis.

The z score for each measure is based on the following formula:

Score = (State value – National value)/ Standard deviation of all state values

The z score indicates the number of standard deviations a state value is above or below the U.S. value. A 0.00 indicates a state has the same value as the nation. States with higher values than the U.S. value have a positive score; states below the U.S. value have a negative score. To prevent an extreme score from exerting excessive influence, the maximum score for a measure is capped at +/- 2.00. If a U.S. value is not available from the original data source for a measure, the mean of all state values is used. For measures from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), the median of the state values is used for the U.S. value to conform to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention methodology. For more details, see the BRFSS section in Data Sources and Measures.

Permissions: "United Health Foundation encourages the distribution of information in this publication for non-commercial and charitable, educational or scientific purposes. Please acknowledge America’s Health Rankings Annual Report, 2017 Edition as the source and provide the following notice: ©2017 United Health Foundation. All rights reserved. Please acknowledge the original source of specific data as cited."