NEW JERSEY — Ten of the healthiest communities in America are in the Garden State, according to a new ranking released Tuesday by U.S. News & World Report.
U.S. News said the sixth annual 2024 Healthiest Communities ranking measures how well counties serve their residents and is intended as a blueprint for residents, community health leaders and elected officials to develop policies and best practices for better health outcomes.
The analysis considers more than 90 metrics and hundreds of thousands of data points across 10 main categories: community vitality, economy, education, environment, equity, food and nutrition, population health, housing, infrastructure and public safety, U.S. News said. The report also includes an overall ranking of America’s Healthiest Communities.
Among more than 3,140 counties ranked, here are the ones in New Jersey that made the top 500, and their overall ranking (you can explore the data more the table below):
16. Morris County35. Hunterdon County41. Bergen County47. Somerset County123. Monmouth County 237. Sussex County248. Burlington County277 Middlesex County351 Warren County371. Gloucester County
Overall, the top 10 healthiest places in the country are:
“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.”
To compile the rankings and create the overall Healthiest Communities project, U.S. News partnered with the University of Missouri Extension Center for Applied Research and Engagement Systems, a research institution skilled in community health assessment.
Overall, the rankings are based on metrics drawn from sources such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the Census Bureau and the Environmental Protection Agency.
You can explore more data for the top 500 counties in the searchable table below, or click here to see the table in a new window.
Note: some counties were missing data for some of the metrics that U.S. News used, so those spaces are blank, and those particular counties were not scored in any categories where the data was deemed insufficient. Also, you’ll notice some cities on the list, which are treated as counties for U.S. Census Bureau purposes.
And, here’s the breakdown of how each category was weighted in the rankings:
Population Health: 14.15 percentEquity: 12.23 percentEducation: 12.15 percentEconomy: 11.08 percentHousing: 9.46 percentFood & Nutrition: 8.77 percentEnvironment: 8.62 percentPublic Safety: 8.46 percentCommunity Vitality: 7.62 percentInfrastructure: 7.46 percent
Click here to see the full report.
