State Rankings

Rankings included in the 2024 Senior Report are derived from 35 measures across five categories of health: Social and Economic Factors, Physical Environment, Behaviors, Clinical Care and Health Outcomes. For a more detailed description of how the overall rank is calculated, visit the America’s Health Rankings Methodology page.

Utah is the healthiest state in this year’s Senior Report for the third consecutive year. It ranks among the top five states in Social and Economic Factors (No. 2) and Behaviors (No. 4). Utah is No. 10 in Clinical Care, No. 14 in Health Outcomes and No. 14 in Physical Environment.

Strengths: Low prevalence of excessive drinking, high percentage of households with high-speed internet and low poverty rate

Challenges: High suicide rate, high prevalence of frequent physical distress and low home health care worker rate

Colorado (No. 2), Vermont (No. 3), New Hampshire (No. 4) and Minnesota (No. 5) complete the top five healthiest states for older adults.

Mississippi is the least healthy state in this year’s Senior Report, also for the third consecutive year. It ranks in the bottom five states in Social and Economic Factors (No. 50), Behaviors (No. 49) and Clinical Care (No. 50). Mississippi is No. 41 in Health Outcomes and No. 18 in Physical Environment.

Strengths: Low prevalence of excessive drinking, low housing cost burden and low prevalence of frequent mental distress

Challenges: High early death rate, high prevalence of food insecurity and high prevalence of smoking

Louisiana (No. 49), West Virginia (No. 48), Kentucky (No. 47) and Oklahoma (No. 46) complete the five least healthy states.

This graph displays the state scores in order of rank, with the least healthy states on the left and the healthiest states on the right. The distance between bars shows the difference between state scores. For example, Louisiana (No. 49) and West Virginia (No. 48), while close in ranking, have a large difference in score, meaning Louisiana would need to make a lot of progress to improve its score and move up in the rankings. There is also a large gap in score between Ohio (No. 37) and Indiana (No. 36), as well as between Missouri (No. 41) and New Mexico (No. 40).

The website features downloadable State Summaries for each state and the District of Columbia. Each summary describes state-specific strengths, challenges, trends and rankings for individual measures, allowing users to identify which measures positively or negatively influenced each state’s overall rank. Disparity ratios have also been added to the State Summaries this year. This information can also be visualized by selecting a state in the Explore Data section of the website. Additionally, the Adjust My Rank tool, found on the State Data pages, allows users to explore how progress and challenges across key measures can affect a state’s overall rank.