The Aetna Foundation, part of the Hartford, Conn.-based insurer Aetna, and U.S. News & World Report are collaborating to determine and rank the healthiest communities in the U.S.
Healthiest Communities is a platform to evaluate how cities and counties nationwide decrease chronic disease, keep patients out of the hospital and provide healthcare at lower costs.
The platform will rank 3,000-plus counties across 10 health-related categories, including community vitality, economy, education, food and nutrition, health, and public safety, among others.
The full rankings will be made public in late March 2018 and are based on 80 metrics drawn from sources such as the CDC, the U.S. Census Bureau and the Dartmouth Atlas of Healthcare. More than a dozen experts also contributed to the analysis and advised U.S. News researchers on the appropriate weights to be assigned to each major category.
For more information on the Healthiest Communities initiative, click here.