Urban, High-Performing Rankings
Measuring health and wellness in similar communities
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Understanding the cultures of communities around the U.S. and how they can overcome obstacles to health and wellness is a key driver behind the U.S. News Healthiest Communities rankings, which allow residents to compare their communities with others across the nation of similar geographic status and economic strength.
In measures of health and wellness, it can be difficult to top urban communities with high-performing economies – they tend to boast more accessible health care, stronger schools and more walkable neighborhoods. Still, none scores perfectly in all measures of community well-being, indicating all communities have things to learn from one another.
Below are the 2018 rankings of the top 100 urban, high-performing communities and their scores across 10 categories that drive health outcomes, on a scale of zero to 100.
Rank | County | Population Health | Equity | Education | Economy | Housing | Food & Nutrition | Environment | Public Safety | Community Vitality | Infrastructure | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Falls Church city, Virginia | 89.7 | 59.2 | 100.0 | 96.5 | 44.6 | 70.4 | 61.6 | 97.4 | 71.2 | 86.9 | |||||||||||
| 2 | Douglas County, Colorado | 85.1 | 57.7 | 67.0 | 99.6 | 59.6 | 81.1 | 65.8 | 78.6 | 87.1 | 93.5 | |||||||||||
| 3 | Broomfield County, Colorado | 87.0 | 47.4 | 70.4 | 91.3 | 56.2 | 86.3 | 68.3 | 71.3 | 79.6 | 92.5 | |||||||||||
| 4 | Los Alamos County, New Mexico | 85.2 | 83.1 | 66.5 | 67.2 | 42.0 | 93.0 | 76.7 | 72.8 | 75.5 | 88.6 | |||||||||||
| 5 | Dukes County, Massachusetts | 74.3 | 72.5 | 82.4 | 68.0 | 62.9 | 82.4 | 57.2 | 60.2 | 91.7 | 86.5 | |||||||||||
| 6 | Fairfax city, Virginia | 81.1 | 44.6 | 90.8 | 88.0 | 40.7 | 83.0 | 64.3 | 91.6 | 71.4 | 78.1 | |||||||||||
| 7 | Hamilton County, Indiana | 78.1 | 69.1 | 77.0 | 91.2 | 58.5 | 72.7 | 47.8 | 63.8 | 83.2 | 83.2 | |||||||||||
| 8 | Loudoun County, Virginia | 82.3 | 31.1 | 81.4 | 100.0 | 43.4 | 81.9 | 54.5 | 86.9 | 86.4 | 73.1 | |||||||||||
| 9 | Ozaukee County, Wisconsin | 82.3 | 72.6 | 77.3 | 79.8 | 51.0 | 76.5 | 66.1 | 70.2 | 71.3 | 76.4 | |||||||||||
| 10 | Delaware County, Ohio | 76.3 | 72.9 | 73.1 | 88.5 | 53.6 | 68.4 | 53.8 | 64.1 | 84.1 | 79.3 | |||||||||||
| 11 | Carver County, Minnesota | 87.1 | 49.8 | 77.5 | 92.9 | 40.9 | 73.8 | 56.0 | 76.1 | 78.6 | 80.5 | |||||||||||
| 12 | Washington County, Minnesota | 85.3 | 59.6 | 78.5 | 87.1 | 43.7 | 76.6 | 52.0 | 72.4 | 72.3 | 85.2 | |||||||||||
| 13 | Rockingham County, New Hampshire | 71.2 | 76.4 | 74.8 | 84.8 | 67.0 | 81.7 | 41.6 | 77.5 | 65.6 | 67.5 | |||||||||||
| 14 | Norfolk County, Massachusetts | 74.8 | 58.0 | 89.7 | 88.3 | 50.7 | 85.7 | 51.0 | 81.0 | 58.3 | 64.6 | |||||||||||
| 15 | Howard County, Maryland | 85.4 | 40.5 | 81.8 | 93.0 | 49.8 | 82.2 | 48.2 | 68.9 | 65.6 | 85.3 | |||||||||||
| 16 | Fairfax County, Virginia | 90.7 | 30.2 | 80.7 | 92.8 | 46.9 | 82.0 | 64.9 | 75.0 | 60.6 | 81.9 | |||||||||||
| 17 | Williamson County, Tennessee | 75.8 | 49.0 | 72.9 | 89.8 | 52.6 | 73.1 | 59.8 | 60.4 | 88.4 | 75.0 | |||||||||||
| 18 | Summit County, Colorado | 92.8 | 60.7 | 49.4 | 73.9 | 34.7 | 79.3 | 91.7 | 77.8 | 65.5 | 88.3 | |||||||||||
| 19 | Poquoson city, Virginia | 69.9 | 77.9 | 74.7 | 74.6 | 52.9 | 76.3 | 50.4 | 78.5 | 70.9 | 72.1 | |||||||||||
| 20 | Lincoln County, South Dakota | 85.9 | 66.2 | 56.0 | 86.8 | 53.4 | 62.9 | 61.6 | 62.1 | 79.0 | 83.4 | |||||||||||
| 21 | Morris County, New Jersey | 80.0 | 33.0 | 89.2 | 90.5 | 51.1 | 89.6 | 48.3 | 78.4 | 61.9 | 71.3 | |||||||||||
| 22 | Bristol County, Rhode Island | 68.4 | 69.3 | 75.8 | 75.2 | 50.9 | 87.8 | 50.4 | 82.8 | 54.8 | 87.6 | |||||||||||
| 23 | Arlington County, Virginia | 88.9 | 23.0 | 84.2 | 91.7 | 54.3 | 88.2 | 50.4 | 89.4 | 51.5 | 77.2 | |||||||||||
| 24 | Warren County, Ohio | 65.8 | 70.6 | 72.0 | 85.6 | 56.2 | 66.4 | 43.1 | 70.4 | 74.5 | 91.3 | |||||||||||
| 25 | Clear Creek County, Colorado | 75.0 | 62.3 | 43.2 | 76.7 | 55.3 | 88.9 | 90.2 | 89.3 | 76.3 | 53.8 |
The remaining 3,000 counties are unranked. To see more information on your county, search here:
The 2018 Healthiest Communities rankings were created in collaboration with the Aetna Foundation and are based on an examination of nearly 3,000 communities across 80 metrics in the 10 health-related categories. Population health and equity are the most heavily weighted categories, based on the assessments of more than a dozen leading experts on what matters most to a community’s health.
These rankings identify the top 100 urban, high-performing communities in America, ranging from No. 1 Falls Church city, Virginia, to No. 100 Cheshire County, New Hampshire. Communities classified as “urban” were metropolitan or micropolitan – areas with substantial central populations and integrated adjacent communities – and were home to at least 20 people per square mile. “High-performing” communities scored in the top half of the economy category among all places assessed for the overall Healthiest Communities rankings.
Beyond the rankings, the Healthiest Communities platform offers data and insight on each of the nearly 3,000 communities evaluated.
14.15%
Population Health
12.23%
Equity
12.15%
Education
11.08%
Economy
9.46%
Housing
8.77%
Food & Nutrition
8.62%
Environment
8.46%
Public Safety
7.62%
Community Vitality
7.46%
Infrastructure
CATEGORIES
WEIGHT
Population Health
14.1 %
Equity
12.2 %
Education
12.2 %
Economy
11.1 %
Housing
9.5 %
Food & Nutrition
8.8 %
Environment
8.6 %
Public Safety
8.5 %
Community Vitality
7.6 %
Infrastructure
7.5 %
Although many of the Healthiest Communities overall are urban, high-performing communities, they make up only a portion of the U.S. See the top 500 overall rankings and the top 100 communities in the other three peer groups created by U.S. News to allow for fair comparisons:
- Overall Rankings
- Urban, Up-and-Coming Rankings
- Rural, High-Performing Rankings
- Rural, Up-and-Coming Rankings
An Honor Roll also highlights top-performing communities within each of the four peer groups in each of the nine U.S. Census regional divisions: East North Central, East South Central, Middle Atlantic, Mountain, New England, Pacific, South Atlantic, West North Central and West South Central.