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Show Healthful Neighborhoods: Healthful Behaviors: Utah ranks in the first quartile (or top 12 states) overall for healthful neighborhoods. This is a noteworthy accomplishment and indicates that Utah is doing well in these sub-categories. There are, however, some areas that need to be discussed. The "Average Public Assistance Payment per Family" is measured by the average monthly payment to a family receiving Aid to Families with Dependent Children. Since this does not measure what proportion of the poor are served, the measure may be more an indicator of concentration of support rather than adequacy of support. Utah is in the middle range on this indicator. Utah ranks tenth in the nation in the sub-category "Education Spending per Capita." This is measured by examining each state's spending on elementary, secondary, vocational, and higher education in fiscal year 1987 and dividing by the state's population. This measure is highly influenced by family size and population age distribution. Utah's "childhood poverty rate" is listed as 11.5%, which is measured by the percentage of children living below the federal poverty line, averaged across the years 1986 through 1990. Childhood poverty is also listed as a risk factor in this Review as well. This number does not point out that childhood poverty increased 37% between 1979 and 1989 in Utah. "Healthful behavior indicators" appear in the Risk Factors section (pp. 40-57). Utah is ranked in the first quartile in this area, which is encouraging and not surprising. Community Health Service: Utah is ranked in the second quartile for community health service overall. Government "Health Spending per Capita" figures were obtained by calculating total state government spending on community health programs in 1986 and 1987 and dividing by the state population. Utah is ranked 12th on this measure. "Sanitation and sewerage spending per capita" was measured by total amount spent in 1986-87 and dividing by the total population. Utah ranked 37th in the nation on this measure. "Public Health workers per capita" measures the number of public health workers divided by the state's population. This does not include hospital workers and physicians. Utah ranked 30th in the nation on this measure. Summation: Utah ranks in the first and second quartile for each of these categories of public health indicators except healthful environment. The Report Card indicates that Utah has some work to do: in some cases to improve the accuracy of the measures and in other cases to improve the actual conditions. Utah's Health: An Annual Review 1993 61 |
