U.S. News recently released the first national, county-level assessment analyzing how health and environmental factors affect the well being of children under the age of 18. The list ranks the top 50 healthiest counties for kids in America.
Topping the list is Marin County, a northern suburb of San Francisco, despite the fact that it struggles with a high rates of children in poverty and teen births—percentages almost twice as high as fifth-place Ozaukee County of Milwaukee. California’s San Francisco County, Vermont’s Chittenden County and Massachusetts’s Norfolk County also were ranked within the top 5.
The only Southern county to make the Top 50 list was Tennessee’s Williamson County, a suburb of Nashville, which just barely made the cut. The other counties included in the list were evenly dispersed across the U.S., with clusters in the Northeast and California.
The top 25 healthiest counties in America for kids:
- Marin County, Calif.
- San Francisco County, Calif.
- Chittenden County, Vt.
- Norfolk County, Mass.
- Ozaukee County, Mass
- Middlesex County, Mass.
- Boulder County, Colo.
- Douglas County, Colo.
- Montgomery County, Md.
- San Mateo County, Calif.
- Placer County, Calif.
- Johnson County, Iowa
- Hunterdon County, N.J.
- Bergen County, N.J.
- Hampshire County, Mass.
- Waukesha County, Wis.
- Nassau County, N.Y.
- Santa Clara County, Calif.
- DuPage County, Ill.
- Dane county, Wis.
- Cass County, N.D.
- Olmsted County, Minn.
- Morris County, N.J.
- Yolo County, Calif.
- Howard County, Md.
Recently The American College of Sports Medicine ranked cities based on measures of health and health potential. Take a look at The Fittest Cities in the U.S. to see if your hometown made the cut.