(Radio Iowa) – Iowa now ranks among the “top tier” states in a non-profit group’s annual study of preparedness to respond to a range of health emergencies, including disease outbreaks and natural disasters. Dara Lieberman, director of government relations at Trust for America’s Health, says the rankings are compiled based on ten key factors. “Generally, Iowa’s been in the middle for the last couple of years so they did move up this year,” Lieberman says. “We think that might be because Iowa increased its public health funding in the last year but that is after cuts the previous couple of years. It is important that state lawmakers invest in public health every year and not just during a pandemic.”

In addition to a boost in public health funding, the report notes Iowa had an increase in the percentage of workers who use paid time off.  “One area where the state needs to improve is a relatively low percentage of hospitals had a top patient safety grade,” Lieberman says. “That shows why private sector health care systems are such an important piece of our emergency preparedness. We also found, in one of our new indicators this year, only about 38% of Iowa residents were estimated to be protected by what’s considered a public health system.”

As America enters its third year of grappling with COVID-19, she says the pandemic continued to demonstrate the need for urgent investment to create a public health system to protect everyone. Iowa showed its ability to respond to natural disasters just this past week, after a storm system spun off multiple tornadoes in the state. “The public health preparedness funding that goes to Iowa, that comes from CDC, has helped them better prepare for disasters like tornadoes,” Lieberman says, “so they can better equip shelters, they can help inform the public about the health risks, and work with emergency management to protect people who are most vulnerable.”

Iowa is among 17 states in the top tier category, with 20 states in the middle, and 13 in the bottom tier. See the full “Ready or Not” report at: www.tfah.org