Iowa has moved up to seventh place in the nation from tenth last year on a health survey from the United Health Foundation. Kevin Teale (teel), spokesman for the Iowa Department of Public Health, says the survey ranks the states based on 17 factors.The areas include things like percentage of children in poverty, state spending on health care for the poor, percentage of people without health insurance and the number of sick days taken by workers. Teale says Iowa ranked so well overall because of the state’s performance in several of the survey’s key areas. Teale says Iowa did well in categories like health insurance coverage, a good graduation rate for high schoolers and a low number of children in poverty. Still, he says the survey shows areas where Iowa could stand some improvement.Iowa needs to work on things like heart disease and occupational fatalities as they relate to the dangerous work of farming. While Iowa ranked 7th on the survey, New Hampshire was first, followed by Minnesota and Massachusetts. The bottom three are: South Carolina, Mississippi and Louisiana.
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