By Becky Jacobs

More than 20 years ago, Blue Cross and Blue Shield United of Wisconsin gifted more than $300 million to each of Wisconsin’s medical schools to improve public health. In the years since, however, Wisconsin has fallen in national health rankings, and the state continues to struggle with racial disparities in low birth weights, excessive drinking, obesity and other issues. 

Wisconsin ranks among the bottom half of states for health outcomes for women and children, according to the latest analysis by the United Health Foundation. Last month, the Urban Institute and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation reported Wisconsin was one of two places where the gap in life expectancies among Black and white people had widened in recent decades. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has also found Wisconsin children lag behind kids in other states for getting vaccines. 

Jesse Ehrenfeld, who oversees the public health endowment created at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Wauwatosa, said the dream outlined 20 years ago remains his team’s aspirational goal. 

“We have a lot of work to do to get there, and it’s not entirely clear what metric you would use to define being the healthiest state in the nation. But I think we would all agree that we’re probably not there today,” Ehrenfeld said. 

Robert Golden, the outgoing dean at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Medicine and Public Health, offered a similar assessment for the state. 

“We are not doing well in terms of public health,” he said.