Boston Named Healthiest Metro Area

Faneuil Hall photo by Lisa DeCotis

There are a ton of rankings out there, and the Boston area and the state of Massachusetts (and its neighbors to the north, most notably, Vermont) are consistently ranked near the top when it comes to health and fitness. NerdWallet, a number crunching company that uses data-driven tools to help you make decisions about your money, sifted through all the data available on the 50 largest metropolitan areas to find the healthiest places in the U.S.

The company used factors such as the general fitness of residents, overall health insurance coverage, and the availability of doctors. In addition, the rankings were based on the following factors:

How fit are the residents? We assessed the overall fitness of residents in line with the American Fitness Index, a composite index that includes data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), environmental factors from the Trust for Public Lands, rates of disease and other government data. We also included the percentage of residents with healthy weight levels and the percentage of residents who engage in physical activity, according to data from the CDC. Is health care accessible? We incorporated the percentage of residents who have health insurance, as well as the number of available physicians per 100,000 residents.

Boston took the prize for the healthiest metro area due to a very low rate of uninsured residents (just 4.6 percent), its fit residents, the number of free fitness classes that are offered in the summer months, various Fit City and healthy challenges introduced by former Mayor Tom Menino, and our gorgeous parks.

San Francisco took second place, followed by Minneapolis, Seattle, and Washington D.C. rounded out the top five.