New report reveals Hawaii’s health advantages, disadvantages for kupuna

HONOLULU (KHON2) — According to a new report, health for Hawaii’s seniors seems to be doing well overall. But there are still areas where we struggle, including ranking last in the nation when it comes to insufficient sleep and excess drinking.

The 2024 America’s Health Rankings Senior Report was recently released by the United Healthcare Foundation and outlined some of the most urgent health disparities we see.

Hawaii scored high marks in senior health, coming in overall at 6th in the nation.

We’ve succeeded in combating obesity, where we ranked first, second in the least amount of falls and smoking, fifth in physical activity, and 15th in exercise.

“We’ve had the lowest rate of premature death in the country and we have the lowest rate of hospitalizations for preventable conditions in the country,” said Dr. Robert Gluckman of United Healthcare Hawaii. “We have some really advantageous health advantages, low obesity rate, low smoking rate, and increased levels of physical activity.”

But some areas are a major concern, like excessive drinking where we are 50th, and access to health care.

We don’t rank quite as high in the proportion of our community that gets cancer screening. There’s been some decline in the proportion of our members, of our patients, who are getting immunizations. And so I think access to care is a real challenge. A lot is going on at the state level to try to improve that, but you’re thinking about how we’re going to have some novel ways of getting people care that rely on just that, don’t totally rely on face to face visits.

Dr. Robert Gluckman, United Healthcare Association

Dr. Gluckman added that improving telehealth as we deal with staffing issues at care facilities can help.

Since we’re first in longevity and mortality, Dr. Gluckman is concerned about Alzheimer’s. He said social isolation can be a contributing factor, but there is a way kupuna can help stop it.

“Hawaii ranked 41st in the level of volunteerism among our seniors. So some seniors who are well could look for opportunities to volunteer to improve their social isolation and that’s also going to have an impact on the people who are not willing to volunteer because they could be the recipients,” Dr. Gluckman explained.