Top 5 Stories on State of Health in 2014

President Obama took a victory lap on Apr. 1 as the first open enrollment of the Affordable Care Act came to a close and millions had signed up. A story about the ACA was in State of Health's top five posts this year. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images) (Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images)

It's been a big year in health: the launch of the Affordable Care Act, an ongoing Ebola epidemic and the first soda tax in the country, passed by Berkeley voters.

Here on State of Health, all those stories got plenty of attention from you, the readers. But the Top 5 might surprise you. We crunched the numbers and here are the posts that netted the most views this year.

1) What Philip Seymour Hoffman's Tragic Death Teaches Us About Addiction

Philip Seymour Hoffman arrives for the Los Angeles premiere of 'The Hunger Games: Catching Fire' in Los Angeles, California, last November. Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images)

We all know the sad details. In February, Philip Seymour Hoffman died of a drug overdose. He had been an addict as a young man, but given up drugs and alcohol at 22. His relapse cost him his life. But what troubled me most after his death were the heartless social media attacks about his "selfishness" and "poor choices."

Everyone weighed in after Hoffman's death, so I wrote a short post about the disease of addiction. “Diabetes is a disease of the pancreas. Addiction is a disease of the brain,” Dr. David Smith, founder of the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic told me.

If you don’t think addiction is a disease, he added, “then take a laxative, sit on the toilet and try not to have a bowel movement.” Yes, a simplistic analogy, he said, “but effective.”

The short post went viral and became the most read State of Health post this year. It also generated scores of comments, many from family members of addicts.

2) Earthquake Safety: Stand In A Doorway?

Police officers in Napa prop up a fallen door in front of a damaged building following Sunday's earthquake there. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Early Sunday morning on Aug. 24, a magnitude 6.0 earthquake rolled through the Bay Area. The epicenter was south of Napa, and damage in that city was extensive.

A couple days after the quake, I became troubled when several of my colleagues mentioned "standing in a doorway" was a safe thing to do in an earthquake.

I knew this was wrong. Really wrong. In all likelihood, the idea of the doorway being safe in a quake goes back to the 19th century, when homes were built of adobe. Adobe crumbles in an earthquake and the only thing left standing would be the wood-framing of the doorway.

Not many people live in adobe homes these days. Instead, experts say to drop, cover and hold on.

3) Vaccine Opt-Out Rate Doubled in 7 Years; Look Up Your School Online

The rate of parents choosing not to vaccinate their children doubled over seven years. Olivia Allen-Price used seven years of state data of vaccine rates at 8,220 public, private and parochial schools statewide to create an easy look-up tool where parents could see what the opt-out rate is at their own school. We followed up with a story about a parent who wondered, "Should I freak out?" when he discovered the opt-out rate at his son's school was 32 percent.

4) For Legal Immigrants, Obamacare Has Options for Aging Parents

A view of the the Statue of Liberty. (Timothy Clary/AFP/Getty Images)

Of all the stories about the Affordable Care Act we have written (and there have been a lot of them), this one -- about options for aging parents of legal immigrants -- got the most traffic. Why? Because before Obamacare, newly-arrived aging immigrants had few health insurance options. They were not eligible for Medicare, and because of the existence of Medicare, there was virtually no insurance market for people over 65. Under the ACA, lawfully present immigrants are eligible to apply for insurance on the Obamacare exchanges, including Covered California.

KQED's Obamacare Guide, while not technically a post on State of Health was produced by the State of Health team, and it continues to get the most views of any of our Obamacare coverage.

5) PriceCheck Project: Creating A Database of Real Health Care Costs

Health care costs are notoriously opaque and wildly variable. So, we teamed up with LA's KPCC, and ClearHealthCosts.com, a New York City start-up, to launch PriceCheck, a crowdsourced database of health care costs. We launched in June and held our breath. Would you, our audience, share your prices? Yes, hundreds of you did. Thousands more searched our database looking for real prices. We'll be back in 2015 with more PriceCheck stories. But for now, thank you for making this project such a success.

We appreciate your being part of the State of Health community, and we look forward to sharing more health stories with you in 2015!