Learn about strategic and sustainable solutions!
March 2019
State Health Rankings
How healthy is your state? Take a look at America’s Health Rankings , which assessed 35 markers in four categories of health determinants. Determinants directly influence health outcomes. Here are the four categories the determinants fall into:
  1. Behaviors
  2. Community and environment
  3. Policy
  4. Clinical care and outcomes data.
The top five healthiest states are:
Hawaii, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, and Utah . 
Here are some national successes :
  • The percentage of children in poverty is decreasing.
  • The number of mental health and primary care physicians per 100,000 population is increasing.
  • Air pollution is decreasing.
  • Adolescent immunizations are rising.

Here are some national challenges:
  • Obesity prevalence exceeds 30 percent of the adult population for the first time in America’s Health Rankings Annual Report history.
  • Premature death rates are increasing, impacted by the continuing rise in drug death and suicide rates and increase in occupational fatalities
  • Incidences of frequent mental distress and physical distress are rising.
PSS Around Town
Joan Plisko at Maryland's League of Conservation Voters' Environmental Legislative Summit, Annapolis, Maryland.
Joan Plisko at Pearlstone , receiving the Seal of Sustainability from Merav Cohen, Hazon.
Is the Lorax Real?
At the far end of town where the Grickle-grass grows, a team of Dartmouth professors has finally cracked T he Lorax , by Dr. Seuss.

He is the Lorax . He speaks for the truffula trees.

His origins are never explicitly addressed in the illustrated children's book that bears his name, but new research reports that his tubby poise was inspired by a real animal —the Patas monkey—and the monkey's bond with a real tree, the Whistling Thorn Acacia.
Truffula Trees
Lorax
Patas Monkey
Whistling Thorn Acacia
About Plisko Sustainable Solutions
Joan and Marc Plisko
Swallow Falls State Park, Maryland
Joan Plisko, PhD, President
Marc Plisko, CIH, Vice President
The mission of Plisko Sustainable Solutions, LLC is to catalyze positive health, environmental, and social change through improved customer performance, economic savings, and enhanced social awareness.