US State Health Rankings 2013: Hawaii Tops List, Find Out Where Your State Stands [FULL LIST]

nyc-marathon-2 — Americans running the New York City marathon. Overall, Americans made healthier choices in 2013 than in 2012. Creative Commons

Let’s all give ourselves a well-deserved pat on the back, because according to an annual measurement of the U.S.’s overall health, Americans made healthier living choices in 2013. The report, released Wednesday, shows that Americans improved in more than two-thirds of the health factors measured, including getting our butts off the couch more often.

Every year for the past two decades, the United Health Foundation, in partnership with the American Public Health Association and the Partnership for Prevention, puts a finger to the collective American pulse. The yearly checkout helps lawmakers and individuals better understand the health of communities across the country. The various factors they measure include smoking, obesity, high school graduation rates, children in poverty, binge drinking, incidence of preventable diseases and access to care. The report also measures certain quality-of-life indicators like violent crime and air pollution.

Each state is given a score, calculated by subtracting the national mean from the state value and dividing by the standard deviation of all state values. States whose scores were close to zero, like Arizona’s and Pennsylvania’s, were closest to the national averages for the factors measured. States whose scores were positive and farther from zero scored as “healthier” on the index.

Overall, in 2013, Americans exercised more, smoked less and, for the first time since 1998, did not put on weight.

"We are encouraged,” Reed Tuckson, senior medical adviser to the not-for-profit United Health Foundation, which sponsors the report with the American Public Health Association and the Partnership for Prevention, told USA Today. "We're seeing it all across America -- individuals and families are making the decision to be active, to eat a more appropriate diet, to stop smoking. We are seeing that people can do it. And we are encouraged by the work in communities to address these issues that compromise America's health and vitality.”

That’s not to say we’ve broken all our bad habits. While obesity rates leveled off compared with previous years, diabetes continues to increasingly affect adults. The chronic condition diminishes the health of nearly 10 percent of the U.S. population -- about double the rate in the mid-1990s.

And compared to the international community, we’re still one of the least healthy countries in the world. According to a January 2013 study from the Institute of Medicine, when compared to other high-income countries, the U.S. fails in at least nine areas of health, including infant mortality, injuries and homicides, heart disease and chronic lung disease. We also have the lowest average lifespan for males and the second-lowest average lifespan for women out of 17 high-income countries.

Here is the complete list of states from healthiest state in the Union (Hawaii) to least healthiest (Mississippi). See where your state falls on the list.

1. Hawaii 0.919

2. Vermont 0.868

3. Minnesota 0.731

4. Massachusetts 0.725

5. New Hampshire 0.703

6. Utah 0.695

7. Connecticut 0.649

8. Colorado 0.565

9. North Dakota 0.557

10. New Jersey 0.531

11. Nebraska 0.460

12. Idaho 0.442