Report details and key findings

For the report, UHF analyzed 87 health measures from 28 data sources to determine health trends in the United States.

According to the report, multiple chronic health conditions reached their highest levels since the organization began tracking them over 30 years ago. The eight conditions measured in the report were:

• Arthritis
• Asthma
• Chronic kidney disease (CKD)
• Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
• Cardiovascular diseases
• Cancer (excluding non-melanoma skin cancer)
• Depression
• Diabetes

Between 2021 and 2022, depression rates increased from 20.5% to 21.7%, with almost 54.2 million adults reporting the condition. Diabetes and asthma rates also increased during that time, growing to 11.5% (almost 31.9 million adults) and 10.4% (almost 26 million adults), respectively. An additional 8.3% of adults (almost 21.4 million people) said they had been diagnosed with cancer at some point in their lives, excluding non-melanoma skin cancer, in 2022.

Many adults also reported having multiple chronic health conditions. In 2022, 11.2% of the adult population, or 29.3 million adults, said they had three or more of the eight measured chronic health conditions. According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, adults with multiple chronic conditions often face a large burden when it comes to the cost of their care, the complexity of their care, and limitations on their daily activities.

The report also identified several disparities across several demographic groups when it came to certain chronic health conditions. For example, adults who reported self-care difficulty had 7.7 times higher rates of COPD, 6.5 times higher rates of CKD, and 3.2 times higher rates of asthma than adults without a disability. COPD was also 7.1 times higher among American Indians/Alaska Native adults than Asian adults.

Chronic health conditions also contributed to premature death rates in the United States. Six of the top 10 leading causes of death before the age of 75 were chronic health conditions, including cancer and cardiovascular disease.

Between 2020 and 2021, the premature death rate increased by 9% nationwide. Across the country, 39 U.S. states reported increases in premature deaths, with the highest being 21% in Alaska.

UHF also ranked several health measures, including preventable hospitalizations, across all 50 states. Overall, Idaho had the fewest preventable hospitalizations at 1,432 per 100,000 Medicare patients, and West Virginia had the highest at 3,874 per 100,000 patients. The U.S. average was 2,681 preventable hospitalizations per 100,000 Medicare patients.

Commentary

According to UHF, the report's findings "underscore the urgent need to confront the nation’s broad and diversifying health challenges—especially the high and rising prevalence of chronic conditions—through policies and actions that tackle disparities and help communities across the nation improve their health and well-being."

Health experts also emphasized a need for more data collection to help improve health outcomes.

"A collaborative, data-driven approach is the only way we're going to create substantial change in improving chronic disease outcomes and reducing health disparities," said Roxana Cruz, director of medical and clinical affairs for the Texas Association of Community Health Centers.

Similarly, David Huang, chief of the health promotion statistics branch at CDC's National Center for Health Statistics, said that "[e]fforts like America's Health Rankings and Healthy People underscore the importance of having high-quality demographic population data for benchmarking, as well as for tracking where we are and where we need to go." (Minemyer, Fierce Healthcare, 12/6; America's Health Rankings 2023 Annual Report, accessed 1/16;  America's Health Rankings executive brief, accessed 1/16; Gamble, Becker's Hospital Review, 1/10; America's Health Rankings Preventable Hospitalizations in the United States, accessed 1/16)

(*Advisory Board is a subsidiary of Optum, a division of UnitedHealth Group. All Advisory Board research, expert perspectives, and recommendations remain independent.)

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