Despite an abundance of available information on how to stay healthy, a surprising number of millennials—defined here as people between ages 25 and 34—rate their health as suboptimal.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 10% of millennials in about half the country rate their health as either fair or poor.
These findings are part of the CDC's 2015 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) Prevalence Data for all 50 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories. The 2015 numbers were the most recent available at press time.
(Related: 10 Towns Where a LOT of People Got Fat)
The degree of poor health assessments varies around the 50 states. Almost 15% of Nevadans rate themselves poorly, while their Vermont peers see themselves as the picture of northern New England health, with just over a 5% poor-or-fair-health rate.
Other organizations' research confirms the CDC findings. In June 2016, the Transamerica Center for Health Studies released its Millennial Survey: Young Adults' Healthcare Reality. Some of the key findings:
-
The most common health conditions among millennials are depression, overweight and anxiety disorders.
-
23% of millennials say they have been diagnosed with depression, anxiety or ADD/ADHD, or have gone through alcohol or drug treatment.
-
54% of millennials say they have been diagnosed with any chronic illness.
The Transamerica survey also points to a business opportunity for health insurance advisors with this cohort, reporting that, "A substantial subset of millennials do not feel very informed about the health insurance options available to them and find decision making about health insurance plans difficult."
(Photo: Thinkstock)
Other results:
-
More millennials say they are informed about how to prevent disease than say they are informed about the health insurance options available to them: 27% of millennials say they are very informed about health insurance options available to them, and 35% say they are very informed about how to prevent disease.
-
More than one third (35%) of millennials say they are not at all or not very informed about the health insurance options available to them.
-
More than half of uninsured millennials (55%) say they are not at all or not very well informed about the health insurance options available to them.
For the five states with the worst millennial health self-ratings, and a read on.
