Compiled by David Pakman

          The United Health Foundation publishes yearly rankings of the healthiest US states. 2004 is the 15th year in which the UHF has conducted such research. While we could go one for pages just about the actual results, what we want to do on our website, as usual, is see if there is any connection between the political orientation of states and their respective healthiness ratings.

          New: The Health of States: Part 2

          In order to accurately and precisely represent the health level of states, a combination of personal behaviors, community environment factors, state health policies, and outcomes are used in calculating a state's score. [View factors]

          Now that we have the data, what can determine?

--Of the blue states, 89.5% are above the baseline for health (0).

--Of the red states, 45.2% are above the baseline for health (0).

--Overall, 14 of the half (25) of the states, or 56% are blue states, while 11, or 44%, are red states.

--Overall, 20 of the bottom half (25) of the states, or 80%, are red states, while 5, or 20%, are blue states.

          On the whole, blue states are more likely to be above the baseline for health than red states. When divided evenly into the top and bottom 25 states, blue states are still more likely to be on the higher end, although by a slightly smaller ratio than when compared solely to the health baseline.

          The reason this is interesting, of course, is because of the stereotypes around parties and their views on the environment. Liberals accuse conservatives of destroying and not caring about the environment. On the other hand, conservatives accuse liberals of putting the environment before everything else, and the infamous term "tree-huggers."

          The question of which came first, the chicken or the egg comes up when looking at the results. Are those conservatives states grouped together at the bottom of the list because people in those states are less concerned with these issues? Or might it be that people are less concerned because the current generations living there were dealt a bad hand from the get-go? It's definitely difficult to say for sure, but the fact remains that these states have been near the bottom of the rankings every time the study has been done.

          A second study on the health of states conducted by Child Magazine has corroborated this data, from the political perspective, almost perfectly: Part 2

          Please send any questions, comments, or hate mail to me here.