Claire Fiddian-Green is the President & CEO of the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation. The 2018 America’s Health Rankings report was just released, and Indiana has slipped from 38th to 41st out of 50 states. According to the report: “States ranking least healthy are in the South with the exception of Indiana.” For the sake of the people of Indiana and the economic well-being of our state, we simply must do better. The primary root causes of Indiana’s poor ranking are clear: we rank among the worst in the U.S. for smoking (44th), infant mortality (43rd), cancer deaths (42nd), frequent mental distress (42nd), obesity (39th) and drug deaths (33rd). Another root cause: […]

Alex Cohen is the Director of Learning and Evaluation for the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation. Smoking remains the number one preventable cause of death in the United States, and Indiana’s smoking rate continues to rank among the worst in the nation. Smoking kills more than 11,000 Hoosiers each year. These impacts are felt especially hard among low-income individuals on Medicaid, who are more likely to be smokers. In addition to the public health impacts, smoking also hurts Hoosiers through high taxpayer-funded costs. For example, Medicaid smokers in Indiana cost $540 million more each year than non-smokers, according to a study we released earlier this year. These lost resources could instead […]