What to Know
- New York City came in 12th place overall as one of the healthiest cities in the United States, according to a WalletHub study
- The study looked at data across four key dimensions — health care, food, fitness and green space — to determine the healthiest cities
- The study looked at the 174 most populous cities in the United States
Health care is on the minds of many across the country, including in the Tri-State area. However, location is a big determining factor when it comes to health. For example, some places have better access to healthy food and more gyms, while others lack affordable health care. These characteristics, among many more, can impact the community’s well-being.
According to a recent study by WalletHub that looked at the 174 most populous cities in the United States, only one city in the Tri-State area — New York City — managed to crack the top 20 as one of the healthiest cities in the country.
The study looked at data across four key dimensions — health care, food, fitness and green space — to determine the overall healthiest cities in the country this year.
New York City came in 12th place overall. Across the key dimensions, the Big Apple came in 84th place when it comes to health care. It ranked second when it comes to food, 46th in fitness and 16th when it comes to green space.
New York City also made an appearance in specific categories that were part of the metrics that WalletHub used to determine the overall healthiest and unhealthiest cities. For example, the Big Apple is among one of the cities with the highest average monthly cost of a fitness club membership.
New York also comes in second place as the city with the most number of healthy restaurants per capita, while Portland came in on top. Another local city made an appearance in this category, although for being among those with the fewest healthy restaurants. Newark — New Jersey’s largest city — came in last place, making it the city with the least amount of healthy restaurants per capita.
Local
Newark is also among the cities with the least number of running trails per capita and the lowest percentage of physically active adults. These attributes contributed to Newark being ranked by WalletHub No. 156 overall out of 174 cities — making it one of the unhealthiest places in the United States.
Newark is not the only city in New Jersey that was ranked as being rather unhealthy. Jersey City came in at No. 107 on WalletHub’s healthiest to unhealthiest ranking.
Connecticut has a couple of cities — Bridgeport (No. 99) and New Haven (No. 114) — that also ranked toward the bottom of the list. However, Bridgeport ranked as the city with the lowest average cost for a fitness club membership.
Yonkers, New York, came in at No. 73. WalletHub also ranked Rochester, New York, as the 79th healthiest city and Buffalo, New York, as No. 89.
The city with the lowest cost for a medical visit is Loredo, Texas, while the city with the highest cost for a medical visit is Boston, according to the study.
Cities across California ranked among those with the lowest number of premature deaths, with San Jose being the city with the least amount of premature deaths. St. Louis had the highest premature death rate, WalletHub reported.
The top four overall healthiest cities are found in the West Coast. San Diego came in at No. 4, while Seattle and Portland were ranked as the second and third healthiest cities, respectively.
WalletHub crowned San Francisco as the healthiest city in 2018. It was ranked as the top city in the food and green space key dimensions. When it comes to fitness, it came in at No. 9.
The nation’s capital was named the fifth healthiest city in the United States.
Brownsville, Texas, was deemed the unhealthiest city in the country, according to WalletHub’s study.
