CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - In a new study, Tom O'Rourke, a professor emeritus of community health at the University of Illinois, examined 25 variables in four categories to see how state policies might affect residents' health.
Among the variables studied were efforts at gun control, state emergency preparedness, cigarette and alcohol taxes, public health and education spending per capita, and state minimum-wage rates.
"It's more of a report card for all states rather than a 'Who's best' or 'Who's worst' list," O'Rourke said.
Delaware ranked as the least hazardous state in O'Rourke's study, followed by Vermont and New York. The distinction of the most hazardous state went to Nevada, followed by Idaho and Texas. O'Rourke noted that a state's population didn't hurt or help its ranking.
It wasn't until he and his co-researchers were finished with their original analysis that they thought to lay the electoral map over the results. O'Rourke said 19 of the top 20 least hazardous states voted Democratic in the 2008 presidential election. Nine of the bottom 10 worst ranked states voted Republican.
O'Rourke, who has spent much of his professional career examining the nation's ailing, failing health-care system, emphasizes the study wasn't intended as a political litmus test. Its conclusions, he said, are the natural byproduct of a state's political ideology.
"Policies, regulations and programs of public health are all integrated with a state's political philosophy," he said. "A state's policies don't merely exist in a vacuum; they reflect the state's political ideologies."
O'Rourke says that policy-makers, state legislators, administrators, public health officials, health-care employees and interested citizens can use these rankings to improve the health services, behaviors and overall population health in their states.
"We're not targeting any one group or any one state," he said. "We're not telling people what to do with these rankings. We just wish to present our data for the public good."
O'Rourke's co-authors of the study are Julia Hemphill, a U. of I. student, and Blake Zachary.