New List Cites the Healthiest & Unhealthiest Cities in the U.S.

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For many Americans, where they live often dictates how healthy they are. For Latinos, where they live often creates inequities and disparities; residential segregation often leads to a lack of access to care, lack of educational attainment, and financial inequity.

The financial site WalletHub examined the notion of healthy cities recently. Cities across the country promote overall health and wellbeing through numerous initiatives ranging from access to nutritious food to creating recreation and fitness facilities to preserving and promoting green spaces or keeping healthcare costs affordable.

Still, many cities are unable to or have not yet made such large-scale changes as these. Without these areas being prioritized, good health can be difficult to maintain, especially for low-income and minority families.

WalletHub compared 150 of the most populated cities in the country against 34 “key indicators of good health.” The four main categories considered were health care, food, fitness, and green spaces.

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According to the findings, San Francisco, Calif. (15.3% Latino population), was the healthiest city in the country, ranking first in “food” and third in “green space.” Salt Lake City, Utah (20.59%), Scottsdale, Ariz. (10.08%), Seattle, Wash. (6.51%), and Portland, Ore. (9.75%) rounded out the top five.

Of the main categories, Scottsdale ranked first in fitness, while Santa Clarita, Calif. (32.21%) ranked first in green space. The city of Overland Park, Kansas (6.3%) ranked first in health care.

Conversely, Detroit, Mich. (7.68%) ranked last on the list of 150 cities, as they were 148^th in health care and fitness. Brownsville, TX (93.55%), Memphis, Tenn. (6.69%), Laredo, TX (95.17%), and Shreveport, LA (2.66%) rounded out the bottom five.

Of the main categories, Memphis ranked last in health care and Brownsville in food. Hialeah, Fla. (95.64%) was last in fitness, while Augusta, GA (4.51%) was last in green space. Outside of Detroit, the rest of the lower performing cities all reside in the southern half of the country.

Texas had four of the lowest ranking cities on the list; in addition to Brownsville and Laredo, Corpus Christi (145) and El Paso (139) all ranked low in the list.

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