The rankings “examine which communities offer the greatest opportunity to live a healthy, productive life. They also highlight that even the ‘healthiest’ communities struggle in certain areas.”
— Julia Haines
Midwest communities are among the healthiest places to live, especially when it comes to achieving health equity, according to new rankings released this summer. But even the strongest communities have their weaknesses.
While Falls Church, Virginia, took the top spot, over half of the top 10 healthiest communities were in Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin, according to U.S. News & World Report’s Healthiest Communities rankings released in August. Researchers reviewed over 90 health metrics for approximately 2,800 communities and scored them across 10 categories such as equity and the environment.
“Evaluating community health is crucial as we consider the well-being of citizens across our country,” said U.S. News data editor Julia Haines in a news release. “The Healthiest Communities rankings examine which communities offer the greatest opportunity to live a healthy, productive life. They also highlight that even the ‘healthiest’ communities struggle in certain areas.”
For the first time, this year’s rankings made health equity a key measure. The rankings assessed community health equity on metrics such as racial and ethnic disparities in premature deaths and low birthweights.
Four of the top five communities for health equity were in the Midwest, with two in Missouri: Adair County at No. 1 and Franklin County at No. 3. Franklin County’s partnership with the regional Mercy health care system played a large role in improving the health of residents, said Tim Brinker, a Franklin County commissioner and health department public information officer.
“(Mercy’s) been a great partner with our local health department here as well as their clinics throughout the county and our municipalities,” Brinker told The Nation’s Health. “What it does is kind of like the fire department effect of having fire hydrants everywhere through a subdivision.”
Missouri’s neighbor, Iowa, had 65 communities in the overall top 500 — the most of any state — and three in the top 10. Dallas County, Iowa, which rose from No. 11 in 2022 to No. 6, scored high in categories such as infrastructure, which highlights the county’s access to multiple trail networks, said APHA member Abigail Chihak, MSW, MPH, Dallas County Health Department’s community health administrator.
But there is still room for improvement for high- ranking communities. While Dallas County’s overall population health category score was 85 on a 100-point scale, it scored 48 in the subcategory of access to care. The county implemented a health navigator program run by community health workers who connect residents not only to health care, but other social determinants of health such as housing and access to nutritious food.
“Despite that Dallas County is on paper very well off, very well-to-do — there’s a gap in our county,” Chihak told The Nation’s Health. “We are always trying to close that gap and make sure that everybody has a similar opportunity for thriving and doing well.”
In fact, nearly all counties in the ranking had room for improvement when it came to closing disparities in social equity. The gender wage gap, one of three new metrics in this year’s rankings, found men out-earn women in nearly 98% of all communities. Also, people with disabilities are less likely to be employed.
Virginia leads on population health
Population health was the most heavily weighted category in the rankings. Fairfax County, Virginia, ranked No. 1. while nearby Arlington County, Virginia, and Falls Church, Virginia, ranked No. 3 and No. 4, respectively.
The rankings assessed how well a community improved population health based on its performance across the subcategories of access to care, health outcomes, health behaviors, health conditions and mental health.
Fairfax County advanced population health through its partnerships, said Adam Allston, PhD, MPH, MSW, chief of population health in the Fairfax County Health Department’s Division of Epidemiology and Population Health.
Allston credited collaborations with organizations such as Partnership for a Healthier Fairfax and the Multicultural Advisory Council, both which bring together leaders of community groups, nonprofits, health-related groups and more to tackle public health issues such as access to care in diverse populations. He also acknowledged that while the county is resource-rich, there are still disparities he sees along racial, ethnic and geographic lines, despite the county’s diversity.
The community partnerships “really shed a light on how we can effectively address the needs of each of those segments of the population,” Allston told The Nation’s Health.
Partnerships are also why Fairfax County is No. 3 in the top five communities for mental health, said Peter Steinberg, LCSW, a program manager for Healthy Minds Fairfax at the Fairfax-Falls Church Community Services Board. Other top counties in the category were Honolulu County, Hawaii; Santa Clara County, California; Wayne County, Nebraska; and San Mateo County, California.
Healthy Minds Fairfax contracts with private providers to give free therapy services to kids and teens from elementary through high school. The board also works to embed therapists in schools and provide telehealth services for high school students. Because data drives outreach, Steinberg said he knows Fairfax County still has work to do in meeting the needs of youth who struggle with opioid addiction and making it easier for families to receive mental health services.
“We’re finding families do have a difficult time navigating the behavioral health world,” Steinberg told The Nation’s Health. “We hope to launch a navigation service in the very near future, and this will help families who are having trouble navigating the service to get that additional help they need for their kids.”
Besides Falls Church, the other communities in the top 10 for the overall rankings were Los Alamos County, New Mexico;Douglas County, Colorado; Sioux County, Iowa; Hamilton County, Indiana; Dallas County, Iowa; Ozaukee County, Wisconsin; Carver County, Minnesota; Bremer County, Iowa; and Morgan County, Utah.
For more on the rankings, visit www.usnews.com/news/healthiest-communities.
- Copyright The Nation’s Health, American Public Health Association