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10 states with the best health & wellness
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Key Takeaways
- SmileHub's study ranked states on health and wellness using 23 metrics, focusing on medical costs, hospital quality, and public health funding.
- States were scored out of 100, with points from community health baselines, healthcare access, and personal health and wellness activities.
Based on 23 key health metrics, SmileHub compiled nationwide rankings of health & wellness; these 10 states scored the highest.
As part of a nationwide study on health & wellness, SmileHub, a nonprofit tech company that specializes in charity reporting, compiled 50-state rankings of states' overall health & wellness. The rankings are based on 23 important metrics, analyzing medical costs, quality of public hospital systems and state funding allocated to public health.
Each state received a score out of 100. States were eligible to earn 35 points based on their community health baselines, 50 points from their health care access and 15 points from personal health & wellness activity scores. The following 23 metrics were considered in the scoring:
Community health baselines
- Share of population served by community water systems with a serious drinking water violation
- Life expectancy
- Obesity rate
- Cancer incidence rate
- Heart disease rate
- Heavy alcohol consumption rate
- Current smoker rate
- Share of insured adults
- Share of insured children
Health care access
- Health & wellness charities per capita
- Cost of medical visit
- Quality of public hospital system
- Hospital beds per capita
- Physicians per capita
- Dentists per capita
- Mental health counselors per capita
- Urgent care centers per capita
- Medicare acceptance rate among physicians
- Medicaid acceptance rate among physicians
- Public health funding per capita
Personal health & wellness activity
- Food insecurity rate
- Google search interest for "healthy eating"
- Share of adults reporting no leisure-time physical activity
