For families across Iowa, the cost of just getting by — food, fuel, and health care — keeps going up. And on top of those everyday pressures, public health data points to some serious concerns on the horizon. Here’s what the numbers show.

 

The cost of everyday essentials

The price of basic goods has risen enough to change how many Iowans shop and eat. In the Iowa Food Bank Association's most recent Food Insecurity Survey, more than 75% said they had changed the amount or type of food they buy because of rising costs, and 42% reported getting food from an Iowa food pantry. Demand has climbed so steadily that the association’s six partner food banks spent $21 million on food in 2025, roughly $9 million more than the year before.

 

Fuel costs have followed the same path. As of late July 2026, the average price of regular gasoline in Iowa was about $3.80 per gallon, up nearly 90 cents from the same week a year earlier. The increase in the cost of diesel is even sharper at $4.85 per gallon, up more than a dollar per gallon from $3.57 a year before.

 

The rising cost of health care

Health insurance is set to become more expensive for many Iowans. For 2027, five insurers on Iowa’s Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace have proposed premium increases, several of them in the double digits. The proposed increases follow the expiration of certain federal ACA tax credits at the end of 2025, and insurers have cited the rising cost of care and prescriptions as a driver. Iowa’s largest marketplace insurer alone has proposed an increase that would affect roughly 80,000 Iowans.

 

A growing public health concern

At the same time the costs of health care are going up, Iowa is also facing rising cancer rates, now having the second-highest cancer incidence rate in the country for the third year running and is one of only three states where cancer rates are still rising, even as rates fall nationally.

 

Researchers are still working to understand why. A March 2026 report linked several of Iowa’s most common cancers to environmental factors, including pesticides, nitrate runoff from fertilizer, PFAS, and radon. Scientists caution that no single factor explains the trend, and that the causes are not yet fully established.