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How Healthy Is Your State?

 

If you don’t smoke, you exercise regularly, you maintain a healthy body weight, you drink little to no alcohol and you get enough shut-eye every night, researchers would say you’re doing five important things toward preventing chronic disease.

But how are your California neighbors — and the rest of the country — doing?

In a study published last month in the journal Preventing Chronic Disease, researchers looked at the number of adults in each state across the country who engage in those five chronic disease-prevention habits.

Adults in the Pacific and Rocky Mountain states were more likely to follow a majority of those habits, while adults in southern states and those states along the Ohio River were less likely.

Utah had the highest percentage of adults who said they engaged in all five health-related behaviors: 11.3 percent of Utah adults said they do. Nationwide, only 6.3 percent of adults reported all five. But researchers also logged the number of people who said they actively adopt at least four of those good health behaviors, which you’ll find displayed on the map above.

In California, nearly 36 percent of adults said they engage in four or five health behaviors. Nationwide, the percentage was 30.6 percent. Utah again ranked at the top, with just over 43 percent of adults checking off four or five health behaviors — and North Dakota came in last with 24.8 percent.

To read the study, click here. To see the data used for the map above, click here.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

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