[June 2002]

Vital Statistics
In our state-of-the-health report, a look at how Milwaukee and Wisconsin stack up ahead of the national curve.
by Erin Killian

Overweight, beer-guzzling, cheese-noshing, unathletic. That about sums us up, right? Yeah, we've heard it all before - those nasty remarks "they" keep saying about us (although often we're not really sure who "they" are).

To find out if our bad rap has any foundation or whether it's just a dog-eared stereotype, we went digging for the facts.

Of course, proud folks that we are, we admit it: We've got some things to work on. Perhaps we shouldn't indulge so much in what our fellow statesmen produce.

Green Bay Packers fans proudly tout cheese hats because Wisconsin still dominates the nation's cheese production with 2.2 billion pounds a year, a quarter of the nation's 8.25 billion pound gross. Sheboygan is the "bratwurst capital" of the United States. Milwaukee is hub for Miller Brewing Company, which produces more than 50 brands of beer, and the city has the most bars and taverns per capita than any other with 459, one for every 1,301 people.

But none of this proves that Wisconsin is overrun with fast food-gorging, soap opera-watching slugs. In fact, some of these negative images have evolved from questionable behavioral surveys - samples of the population polled by random callers. Hey, Milwaukee and Wisconsin, have you ever considered that the rest of the nation could be lying about how much they drink and smoke?

Stereotypes perpetuate notions that may or may not be true. We hope to clear things up once and for all and reveal the facts that show Wisconsin stacking up ahead of the national health curve (and yes, we'll fess up about the things that still need improvement).

The Good News

1: Wisconsin's rank among states for poor women (below 200 percent of poverty level) still covered under employee health insurance. (Jacob's Institute for Women's Health)

2: Milwaukee's national rank for the fastest emergency response times, just behind Seattle. (Medical College of Wisconsin)

1: Milwaukee's 2001 rank among best cities for lesbians to live due in part to the city offering health coverage for domestic partners of government employees and registering same-sex couples. (Other factors weighed were the city's decent cost of living, a tight-knit lesbian community and Wisconsin's anti-discrimination law, which includes sexual orientation.) (Girlfriend Magazine)

9: Wisconsin's rank among states in 2000 for women's health and well-being. (Institute for Women's Policy Research)

41: Wisconsin's rank among states for its tuberculosis rate of 1.7 per 100,000 population in 2000, significantly below the national rate of 5.8. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

43: Wisconsin's rank among states for heart disease deaths in 2000, with 250.3 per 100,000 population, a vast improvement from ranking third in 1990. (United Health Foundation)

43: Wisconsin's rank among states for heart disease death rates for women 35 years and older in a five-year study. (CDC)

34: Wisconsin's rank among states for heart disease risk, at 4 percent under the national average, a vast improvement from its number 1 rank in 1990, when it was 8 percent above the national average. (United Health Foundation)

41: Wisconsin's rank among states for diagnoses of infectious disease (including AIDS, tuberculosis and all hepatitis types), with 11.4 cases per 100,000 population, an improvement from a rank of 36 in the nation in 2000. (United Health Foundation)

41: Wisconsin's national rank for occupational fatalities with 4.4 per 100,000 workers, below the national average of 5.1. (United Health Foundation)

39: Wisconsin's rank among states for average annual deaths related to smoking. (CDC)

36: Wisconsin's rank among states for diabetes death rate, with an age-adjusted rate of 23.1 per 100,000 population. National rate: 25.2. (Diabetes is the sixth-leading cause of death in the nation.) (Journal of the American Medical Association)

11: National rank of percentage of Wisconsin population covered by private or public health insurance, an improvement from 13 in 2000. Eighty-nine percent of Wisconsin's population is covered by private or public health insurance. (United Health Foundation)

17,388: Divorces consummated in Wisconsin in 2000 (3.2 per 1,000 population and 48 percent of marriages), rounding out 75 years significantly below the national divorce rate, currently at 4.1. (Wisconsin Department of Health & Family Services)

78.2: Life expectancy for Wisconsin residents - more than a year longer than the national expectancy of 77.1 and well above the world expectancy of 66. (Wisconsin Department of Health & Family Services)

54: Milwaukee-Waukesha area's rank out of 354 North American cities for healthcare supply, placing it in the top sixth. And that's behind several Canadian cities, with Vancouver number 1. Factors considered include office-based physicians in general and family practice, office-based specialists and surgeons, accredited short-term general hospital beds and hospitals with physician teaching programs certified by the AMA. (Milwaukee has 2,471 office-based physicians: 670 generalists, 1,061 specialists, 740 surgeons). (Places Rated Almanac)

1: Medical College of Wisconsin's rank among the nation's top 50 medical schools in percentage increase in research funding in 2001 from the National Institutes of Health, with a 33.9 percent increase. (Medical College of Wisconsin)

40: AARP's rank of St. Luke's Medical Center out of the top 50 hospitals in the nation. (AARP)

95: Percent of U.S. ginseng ("root of heaven") grown in Wisconsin, with 1,200 growers producing more than 2 million pounds per year. In some studies, ginseng has been shown to help fight cancer and type-2 diabetes and it has been proved to reduce stress. (Wisconsin Department of Agriculture)

1: Wisconsin's rank among states in cranberry production with 200 cranberry marshes. Cranberries are popularly studied and have been shown to curb urinary tract infections, minimize dental plaque and even reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. (The Cranberry Museum)

2: Milwaukee's national rank, second only to Omaha, for the most public golf courses per capita than any other metropolitan area in the country. (Men's Fitness Magazine)

5: Metro Milwaukee-Waukesha recreation ranking out of 354 metropolitan areas, based on amusement and theme parks, aquariums, auto racing, college sports, gambling, golf courses, good restaurants, movie screens, professional sports, protected recreation areas, skiing, water areas and zoos. (Places Rated Almanac)

1,314: Acres of trail running throughout the metro Milwaukee-Waukesha area. (Places Rated Almanac)

Needs Improvement

39: Wisconsin's rank among states for AIDS cases per 100,000 population in 2001 with a rate of 3.8, significantly lower than the national rate of 14. However, Wisconsin's rate rose to 3.8 from 3.1 in 2000, knocking its rank to 39 from 42. (CDC)

29: Wisconsin's rank among states in 2001 for infant mortality rate, with 7 per 1,000 live births. Wisconsin, however, has lost considerable ground from a 42nd rank in 1990. (United Health Foundation)

2: Milwaukee's rank out of 50 metropolitan cities for a high rate of teen births - 20 percent of all births, substantially higher than the 50-city average of 14 percent. In addition, 59 percent of Milwaukee births were to unmarried women, compared with the 50-city average of 43 percent in 1999. (Annie E. Casey Foundation)

20: Wisconsin's rank among states for tobacco-prevention funding, dropping to a 20th rank from 13 last year and 10 in 1999. Gov. Scott McCallum cut funding in 2001 to $15.5 million from $21.2 million. To have an effective program, the CDC recommends that Wisconsin spend between $31.2 million and $82.4 million a year. (CDC)

1: Wisconsin's rank among states for percentage of Wisconsin women who binge drink, with 11.6 percent, well above the national average of 6.9 percent. (Jacob's Institute for Women's Health)

1: Wisconsin's rank among states for reproductive-age Wisconsin women who smoke, with 37 percent. (CDC)

24.1: Percentage of Wisconsin adults who smoke, slightly above the national average of 23.2 percent.(CDC)

11: Wisconsin's rank among states for women and girls who smoke, with 23.3 percent of women and 37.8 percent of high school girls smoking.(CDC)

10: Milwaukee's rank among large cities for high gonorrhea contraction rates, up from 13 in the nation in 1999. Milwaukee's cases rose to 5,146 per 100,000 population in 2000 from 4,884 in 1999.(CDC)

15: Percent of Wisconsin residents who receive Medicare. In January, there was a 5.4 percent rate cut for Medicare funding in Wisconsin. The state ranks among the nation's lowest for physician reimbursement from state government, possibly driving doctors out of the program. (Wisconsin Medical Society)

76: Percent of violent-injury deaths that were suicides in Wisconsin in 2000. The state's suicide rate of 11 is higher than the national average of 10.3. (Medical College of Wisconsin)

300: Milwaukee's climate rank out of 354 North American metropolitan areas. (Places Rated Almanac)

Erin Killian has written for Time magazine and reported for The New York Times.