Ohio near the bottom in latest HPIO health value ranking

Ohio ranks 47 out of all states and D.C. for health value in the Health Policy Institute of Ohio’s newly released 2021 Health Value Dashboard. 

The Dashboard is a tool to track Ohio’s progress toward health value: a combination of population health and healthcare spending. Ohio ranked 43 for population health and 37 for healthcare spending in the new edition of the Dashboard.   

“Ohioans live less healthy lives and spend more on health care than people in most other states,” according to the Dashboard. 

Findings from the Dashboard will be presented at 11 a.m. April 7 at an online forum hosted by HPIO. The forum will highlight key findings from the Dashboard and include presentations from national experts who will discuss how Ohio can improve on health value. 

Ohio has consistently ranked near the bottom on health value in each of the four editions of the Dashboard. Ohio’s overall health value ranking was 47 in 2014, 46 in 2017 and 46 in 2019. 

The Dashboard concludes that Ohio’s low health value rank is largely because of lack of attention and effective action in three areas:

• Children – Child adversity and trauma have long-term consequences for Ohioans
• Equity – Ohioans with the worst outcomes face systemic disadvantages
• Prevention – Ohio’s sparse public health workforce leads to missed opportunities for prevention 

The Dashboard lays out nine evidence-informed policies as examples of opportunities where state policymakers and private-sector partners can work together. “By adopting evidence informed policies and working with private-sector partners, policymakers can make Ohio a leader in health value,” said HPIO President Amy Rohling McGee.   

The Dashboard also includes a series of equity profiles, comparing outcomes for Ohioans based on race/ethnicity, disability status, education and income. The profiles highlights that “our systems, policies and beliefs unfairly favor some Ohioans over others” and that “racism and other forms of discrimination drive troubling differences in outcomes across Ohio.” For example, if differences in outcomes were eliminated, nearly 60,000 Black children in the state would be able to afford to eat and more than 238,000 Ohioans with less than a high school diploma would have broadband internet access. 

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