Indiana Can Do Better
Drew Feutz, CFP®, is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional and Founder of Migration Wealth Management, LLC, a fee-only wealth management firm that specializes in providing financial planning and investment management to people in their 30s and 40s.
When it comes to health in our state, “Indiana can do better” is likely an understatement. For our first of three classes on the topic of "State of Health" in Indiana, MDLF Class V visited IU Health North in Carmel where we had the opportunity to hear from experts in the fields of health, public health, and health care.
Before we get started, I have to give credit where credit is due. I “borrowed” the title of this blog post from Dr. Paul Halverson who is the Founding Dean and a Professor at Indiana University’s Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health. His presentation titled Health in Indiana 2023: We Can Do Better set the tone for our MDLF class day of learning about health, public health, and health care in our state.
Public Health vs Health Care
First, I think it’s important to define public health and health care, which as we learned, are distinctly different. As shared by nearly all of our speakers for the day, public health systems typically don’t provide health care, but focus on preventative measures in communities, neighborhoods, and specific groups of people. On the other hand, health care tends to be more reactive in the forms of the services you may receive at a doctor’s office, hospital, or walk-in clinic.
Much of the information shared about health in Indiana was startling. In separate presentations, both Dr. Halverson and Dr. Virginia Caine, Director and Chief Medical Officer of Marion County Public Health Department, shared that the United States spends more money per capita on health care than any other country, but doesn’t get the return.
Where Indiana Ranks
Indiana is near the bottom of rankings in health and public health in many categories. US News & World Report’s Public Health Rankings place Indiana at #40 and the organization’s Health Care Rankings place Indiana at #32. It seems there’s plenty of room for improvement.
One possible reason for this that many of the day’s presenters spoke to is that Indiana’s public health system is underfunded. In 2020, America’s Health Rankings ranked Indiana 48th for public health funding. The 2022 rankings show that the state has increased slightly in rank to 45th.
A Brief Overview of Health in Indiana
I don’t necessarily want to provide more bad news, but I think it’s important to share with a wider audience some of the eye-opening facts that speakers shared with our class.
Here are a few:
Public Health – IN public health rank has trended downward from a high of 26 in 1991
Life Expectancy – IN life expectancy is almost 2 years less than the US and has continued tending down as the US life expectancy has been going up
Air Pollution – IN is ranked #42 in air pollution, which is a leading cause of COPD, childhood asthma, and respiratory disease
Public Health Investment – The average health department in IN is 3.5 people, most of whom have no education in public health – It would take $248M in public health investment to get IN to the national average
Infant Mortality – The infant mortality rate in IN is higher than the US – 6.7 vs 5.4 per 1,000
Mental Health – 11.8% of 9th-12th graders reported attempting suicide in the last 12 months
We Can Do Better
Clearly, Indiana can do better. Given how poorly our state is performing in so many measures of health, even small improvements will go a long way.
How can we improve?
I’m certainly not qualified to answer that question, but I would like to borrow a line from my fellow classmate Kian Hudson’s July article that I think may provide some insight into a part of the solution (and to hopefully end this on a more positive note):
“And amidst all this uncertainty, perhaps the most important insight is this observation, offered to MDLF fellows by Allison Melangton, Senior Vice President for Penske Entertainment: Time and again, she said, the thing that differentiates Hoosiers, the thing that allows us to accomplish things others would not, is that we do teamwork—we can set aside our egos for sake of common projects (such as the many world-renowned sporting events to which Indianapolis has been host) that we know we couldn’t achieve on our own.”
