10 states with the worst health & wellness

SmileHub, a nonprofit tech company that reports on charities, compared each of the 50 states based on 23 metrics, analyzing medical costs, quality of public hospital systems and state funding allocated to public health. Specifically, the study compared states based on their community health baselines, health care access, and personal health & wellness activity.

Each state was graded on a 100-point scale. States could earn 35 points based on community health baselines, 50 points based on health care access and 15 points from personal health & wellness activity scores. Each category was rated based on the following metrics:

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