West Virginia’s largest cities among the least healthy in the nation
(The Center Square) – Nearly a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, the focus on individual health has taken on a renewed importance. Some cities across the country have responded to individual health better than others, according to a new study from the personal finance website WalletHub.
The study compared more than 180 of the largest cities in the U.S., using a set of 44 metrics, ranging from the cost of a medical visit to the consumption of fruit and vegetables to COVID-19 cases.
According to the results, Huntington ranked as one of the nation’s least-healthiest large cities, coming in at 174th. Charleston ranked slightly higher at 161st.
Charleston and Huntington also had the worst premature death rates in the U.S., tying with St. Louis and Baltimore to ranked 179th, more than four times higher than San Jose, California, the city with the lowest premature death rate.
“Location matters when it comes to health. Some places promote wellness by expanding access to nutritious food and recreational facilities,” Adam McCann, financial writer for WalletHub, said in the report. “When a city doesn’t take care of these many important issues, it can be hard to keep up good health. After all, the cost of care in the U.S. is rising and life expectancy has taken a huge hit during the pandemic.”
San Francisco ranked as the country’s healthiest large city, followed by Seattle; Portland, Oregon; San Diego; and Honolulu. Brownsville, Texas, was the least-healthy large city, ranking below Laredo, Texas; Gulfport, Mississippi; Shreveport, Louisiana; and Memphis, Tennessee.
While San Francisco topped the list overall, Columbia, Maryland, had the lowest share of physically unhealthy adults at 7.8%, 2.7 times lower than Detroit, which ranked with the highest at more than 20%.
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