The personal-finance website WalletHub this week released its annual report on the “Healthiest & Unhealthiest Cities in America.” For those with a rooting interest in Connecticut cities, the results were categorically…mixed.
To identify the places where health is a priority, WalletHub compared 174 of the largest U.S. cities across 42 key metrics. The data set ranges from cost of medical visit to fruit and vegetable consumption to fitness clubs per capita.
Overall, WalletHub ranked Bridgeport No. 82 among the “Healthiest” cities, while New Haven checked in at No. 107.
(Oddly, Hartford was not included in the study. WalletHub Communications Manager Diana Polk explained, “We included the 150 most populated U.S. cities, plus at least two of the most populated cities in each state. In Connecticut the two most populated cities are Bridgeport and New Haven. This is why Hartford was not included.” With a population of about 144,000, Bridgeport is the state’s largest burg, while New Haven outranks the Capital City by about 130,000 to about 125,000.)
As might be expected, the “Healthiest” urban areas were concentrated in the Northeast and on the West Coast, while the bulk of the “Unhealthiest” were in the South (with the notable exception of Detroit).
Cities were given a ranking in four key metric areas: health care rank, a food ranking (including the overall healthiness of local restaurant fare), a fitness ranking and a “green space” ranking.
At No. 82 overall, Bridgeport ranked No. 74 for health-care access (likely by virtue of two major hospitals), No. 108 for food quality, No. 68 for fitness and No. 86 for green spaces.
No. 107 New Haven checked in at No. 92 for health-care access (go figure), No. 132 for quality of food (also go figure), No. 135 for fitness of population and No. 45 for green spaces (not surprising, given the Elm City’s wealth of parks and other open spaces).
Overall, WalletHub ranked San Francisco the healthiest among the 174 ranked cities, while Brownsville, Tex. crawled (or limped) in dead (at least sick) last.
Contact Michael C. Bingham at mbingham@newhavenbiz.com
