The state received points for just three of 10 indicators examined in the report, “Outbreaks: Protecting Americans From Infectious Diseases.”
That means Ohio tied six other states — Idaho, Kansas, Michigan, Oklahoma, Oregon and Utah — for last place.
The five highest-scoring states — Delaware, Kentucky, Maine, New York and Virginia — received points for eight of 10 indicators.
“There’s still some significant policy work that needs to be done” in Ohio, said Jeffrey Levi, principal author of the report, which was funded by the Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Ohio fell short on several fronts, including in its funding of public health by reducing spending at the state level between fiscal years 2014 and 2015, according to the report.
Ohio’s overall public-health spending by the state decreased to $581.8 million in fiscal year 2015 from $592.7 million the previous year. State general-revenue fund spending also declined that year.
The state does a very good job of preventing and responding to infectious-disease outbreaks, said Dr. Mary DiOrio, medical director of the state Department of Health. She said the new snapshot of the state’s outbreak readiness and response efforts doesn’t give a full picture of what’s going on in the state.
For example, statewide bio-safety training was provided this week to prepare certain clinical labs, DiOrio said, but such training had to occur between July 2014 and June 2015 for a state to qualify for a point in the report.
The state also has taken recent steps to strengthen immunization requirements, including a requirement for immunizations at child-care facilities. This past summer, state lawmakers also added the meningococcal vaccine, which protects against meningitis, to a list of shots required for schoolchildren.
But the report gave a point for childhood immunization efforts only if the state excludes philosophical exemptions entirely, or requires a parental notification of affidavit to achieve a religious or philosophical exemption for school attendance.
This is the third year for the report, and some indicators change annually. But Ohio scored near the bottom in previous years as well.
A report card released a year ago by the nonpartisan Health Policy Institute of Ohio found that the state is near the back of the pack nationally when taking into account the overall value, or effectiveness, of its health-care spending.
Ohio ranked 47th among all states and the District of Columbia.
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