Improving Ohioans’ well-being lies beyond health care
With the recent release of the GallupSharecare Well-Being Index, Ohioans were again reminded that we have a long way to go before our residents are as healthy and happy as people in most other states.
The good news is that there are proven strategies we can use to improve our state’s ranking, but they require us to move upstream and focus our attention on factors outside of medical care.
Using a survey of more than 2.5 million Americans, the Well-Being Index ranks states based on factors such as whether its residents like what they do every day; have supportive relationships, financial security and a positive community environment; and report having good health.
Ohio ranks sixth from the bottom among the 50 states.
The low national ranking for Ohio is consistent with HPIO’s Health Value Dashboard, which is a measure of Ohio’s performance on population health outcomes and health-care spending. Our most-recent Dashboard, released last year, ranked Ohio 46th out of the 50 states and D.C.
Ohio’s struggle to make progress compared with other states, despite relatively strong access to quality care for most Ohioans, suggests that the solution to improving Ohio’s overall health and well-being will come from improving the factors within our social, economic and physical environment that are at the root of many of our challenges.
Researchers estimate that of the factors under our control that impact overall health, 20 percent are attributed to medical care (such as health care quality and access) and 30 percent to health-related behaviors. The remaining 50 percent are attributed to community conditions such as housing, air and water quality, transportation, education and employment.
Fortunately, Ohio policymakers can adopt strategies that would begin moving the state in the right direction on these issues. And these evidence-based policies can complement and strengthen efforts undertaken in the private sector to improve the conditions that influence the health and well-being of Ohioans.
The Gallup report highlights the importance of creating an active-living environment and making “the healthy choice the easy choice.” We agree that evidence supports strategies such as improved urban design to encourage exercise, bike and pedestrian master plans and increased green spaces and parks as ways to improve health.
While all of these approaches to better health and well-being are critical, policymakers also can improve health by addressing the social and economic conditions that create barriers to good health for many Ohioans. Examples of evidence-informed policy strategies include:
Expanding Ohio’s Earned Income Tax Credit so that it pulls more low-income working families and adults out of poverty and up the job ladder
Reducing barriers to employment through occupational licensing reform, better access to driver’s licenses and improved bus systems that connect lowwage workers to jobs
Increasing the number of children served by highquality child care, preschool and pre-kindergarten
Improving housing quality through home-improvement loans and grants and incentives to landlords to remove lead paint, mold and other hazards
While access to high quality medical care is critical when we are sick, injured and suffering, these interventions alone are not sufficient to achieving health and well-being. By focusing on factors beyond medical care, our state’s policymakers can move the needle and see real results for the health and well-being of Ohioans.