(Radio Iowa) – A new report ranks Iowa as the 17th healthiest state in the nation. The United Health Foundation has issued its “America’s Health Rankings” report for 36 years, looking at 99 different measures of health in this year’s edition. United Healthcare chief medical officer Ravi Johar says Iowa did well overall across many categories. “There’s a very low prevalence of non-medical drug use,” Johar says. “There’s high prevalence of high school completion. People don’t think education can play a factor in their health, but it certainly can.” Even though Iowa ranked high overall, Johar says the state falls short in some important categories.

“The biggest one is the high prevalence of excessive drinking, it’s actually number 48 out of 50 in the country,” he says. “They have, not a housing shortage at all, but the number of homes with lead is number 45 in the country.” Johar says Iowa also ranked very low in H-P-V vaccination rates, had a high prevalence of obesity, and Iowa saw a 22-percent increase in depression cases reported in adults between 2019 and 2024.

https://assets.americashealthrankings.org/ahr_2025annualreport-statesummaries_all.pdf