Hold the deep fryer, Southern states least healthiest

CNN spoke with Greg Heath, D.H.Sc., M.P.H., former epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and head of the Department of Health and Human Performance at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Here is an edited transcript.

CNN: Is the South unhealthier?

Heath: If you look at it from a disease point of view -- the prevalence of conditions like hypertension or coronary heart disease deaths, heart attacks or strokes -- you can see an emerging pattern through the South and Southeast streaming out into Louisiana and Texas. There are higher rates of this disease relative to other parts of country. If you look at it like a map, you have a band of heart disease deaths that go through this area. In the Mississippi and Ohio valleys, which have a number of Southern states, you have the coronary valley. Rates of death due to coronary heart disease, heart disease and stroke are higher than other places in the country, when compared with the West and Southwest.

Another way to look at this is through the health behaviors that are associated with these diseases. These are people who are identified through height and weight self-reported. The surveys are done by phone in every state.

Generally, when you look at patterns of risk factors for heart disease, diabetes, smoking, fruit and vegetable intake, physical activity and high blood pressure (all self-reported), it covers a whole waterfront of risk behaviors that are associated with these chronic diseases.

Overweight and obesity are higher in the South, even when you adjust for age and socioeconomic status. We see an emerging pattern that looks similar to the death rates in terms of these chronic diseases. We see higher estimates prevalent across these states.

When you look at race, ethnicity, particularly African-American and/or Latino or Hispanic when compared with white population -- the rates of disease tend to be higher (not just in South). Some of this goes away when you control look at socioeconomic status.

A person who has a college education, regardless of race/ethnicity, will have a better health profile, than a person who is of lower income or lower education attainment. That transcends race or ethnicity. Poor uneducated white folk are just as likely to have a poor health profile as some of other races.

Another issue is access to health care. For example, when I was at CDC, I reported on some of these disparities. What you see, when asking people between the ages of 18 and 64 if they have any kind of health-care coverage, 88 percent or more that say yes. Most Southern states are less than 77 to no more than 85 percent of the population indicating they have some kind of health-care coverage. At least 20 to as high as 30 percent are reporting they don't have any health coverage. When compared with other parts of the country, it seems to be much higher.