According to a new report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the health of American seniors is improving—but the news is not all good. The report collects data on smoking, mental and oral health, leisure-time activity, obesity and other indicators of health; in many of those areas (smoking, mammograms and colorectal cancer screens, cholesterol checking) seniors are doing better than they have in previous decades and even as well as health advocates had hoped for by the target date of 2010. In others (obesity, leisure-time physical activity, flu and pneumonia vaccinations, and especially hip fracture hospitalizations) America’s seniors have fallen well behind national targets for the decade’s end.

The CDC report notes wide variations in health among seniors by state and region, by ethnicity and by gender. Hip fractures, for example, were far more common among women than men, resulting in hospitalizations for 1113 of every 100,000 elderly women in 2004, compared to 558 of every 100,000 men. High blood pressure, arthritis, diabetes and stroke remain much more common among African-Americans than other ethnic groups; cancer and coronary heart disease afflict non-Hispanic white Americans at much higher rates.

Performance by state is a mixed bag. Mississippi, for example, is the worst-ranked state in four of the fourteen categories. Hawaii, on the other hand, is the highest-ranked state in four categories, and the lowest-ranked on two others. One regional oddity: the lowest smoking rate is in a state (Utah, with 4.7% of seniors smoking) adjacent to the state with the highest smoking rate in the country (Nevada, at 14.5%). The national average smoking rate for seniors, incidentally, is 9.3%, well under the 12% target for 2010. Only 7.9% of older Arizonans smoke, making the state an 11th-place ranking on this important indicator.

How does Arizona perform in other rankings? On a number of items (leisure-time activity, smoking, obesity) Arizonans are among the healthiest—though never at the top of the list. In others (reporting frequent mental distress, eating at least five servings of fruit and vegetables daily, getting a flu vaccine shot each year) Arizona is near—but never at—the bottom of the list. Arizona’s highest ranking, at fifth, is for oral health: only 15% of Arizonans over age 65 have lost all their teeth, compared to 21.3% of all Americans. That statistic, incidentally, demonstrates a positive set of trends: the prevalence of complete tooth loss has declined from 55% in the late 1950s.

The CDC has set target figures for many of the indicators included in its current report. Its Healthy People 2010 recommendations set goals for seniors in the last few years of the decade. Based on this report of 2004 figures, it may be a challenge for older Americans to meet the seven standards not yet reached.

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