Measuring West Virginia (Updated)

The Mountain State received an array of scores relating to education and health care this week:

• "West Virginia’s average ACT college-entrance exam score rose slightly from 2007 to 2008 but remains below the national average, according to a report released Wednesday," The Associated Press reports. MetroNews and The Charleston Gazette also have items;

• Nearly a quarter of the state's infants and toddlers who get some of their food from a federal welfare program "lived in homes where parents or caregivers smoked last year," The Gazette reports. "The national average for WIC (Women, Infants and Children) children - ages 4 and under - was 10.6 percent."

• Forbes cites Kaiser Family Foundation data and a national-level prescription and patient tracking service to find that "West Virginians use the most retail prescription drugs per capita," making it the most medicated state in the nation, The Gazette reports. AP had noted the ranking earlier.

• (Update) The Charleston Daily Mail reports that West Virginians filed about a fourth of the black lung claims lodged last year, according to federal figures. "About 13 percent of West Virginia coal miners who have had chest X-ray screenings are found to have black lung, as compared to a national average of 9 percent," the article said.