Just like pretty much everything else that U.S. News & World Report ranks about states, the country's 50 separate commonwealths vary widely on their citizens' access to care, quality of care and the overall health of the population, according to the publication's Best States for Health Care. The rankings are based on specific metrics within three broad categories: health care access, which analyzes how many adults and children who go without medical and dental care, including because of the cost; health care quality, which tracks preventable hospital admissions, Medicare plan ratings and the quality of nursing homes and hospitals; and public health, which measures rates of obesity, smoking, suicide, mental health and mortality for adults and infants. Some states like Hawaii and Massachusetts continue to rank highly in their overall scores, while states like Mississippi and Arkansas still face significant challenges. Drilling down into specific factors, we look at the five best and five worst states for health care in the slideshow above. Read more: |

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