(Radio Iowa) Iowa is being downgraded in a non-profit group’s report which ranks the states for public health emergency preparedness. Dr. Nadine Gracia, president and CEO of Trust for America’s Health, says the past year brought many challenges, including the ongoing pandemic, extreme weather events, rises in chronic disease rates, and startling jumps in the number of lives lost to substance misuse and suicide.

“We had 19 states and the District of Columbia in the high performance tier, 16 states in the middle, and 15 states in a low performance tier,” Gracia says. “This year, Iowa did move down a tier. It was in the high performance tier in last year’s report in 2022, and this year, it is now in the middle performance tier.”

Of the ten key categories the report measures in each state, Gracia says Iowa slid back in two of them, though she says those are opportunities for growth over the coming year. “The state no longer has emergency management accreditation, so working to restore that accreditation is an opportunity,” Gracia says. “Also, looking at a factor or an indicator around patient safety and the percentage of hospitals that score at the highest tier with regards to patient safety, that we also saw a decline between 2022 and 2023.”

The report found Iowa excelled in some areas, like in the percentage of Iowans who got their seasonal flu vaccine. Also, the number of Iowans who can take paid time off is higher than the national average. Among the other positives for Iowa. “It has plans in place, for example, to expand its healthcare capacity during times of emergency,” Gracia says. “It also has plans in place to be able to expand its public health laboratory capacity, to increase testing during times of emergency. The state also has public health accreditation, which advances the quality of services that public health departments are providing.”

Iowa also saw improvements in its water safety, according to the report. Gracia says putting a sufficient investment into public health in Iowa and nationwide is vital. “An important recommendation is for Congress as well as state and local governments to ensure that their funding is there and necessary to strengthen our public health infrastructure,” Gracia says, “to be able to modernize our systems, our data systems, our ability to do the communications that are necessary and also to bolster and increase and strengthen a diverse public health workforce.”

The mission statement of Trust for America’s Health is to promote optimal health for every person and community, and make the prevention of illness and injury a national priority. See the full report at: https://www.tfah.org/