State Rankings

Rankings included in the 2025 Health of Women and Children Report were derived from 82 measures across five categories of health: Social and Economic Factors, Physical Environment, Behaviors, Clinical Care and Health Outcomes. The Methodology section of the Appendix describes how overall ranks are calculated. Additional information can be found on the America’s Health Rankings Methodology page.

Massachusetts was the healthiest state in this year’s report, ranking first for both women and children. It ranked among the top five states in Social and Economic Factors (No. 1), Clinical Care (No. 2) and Health Outcomes (No. 5). Massachusetts also ranked No. 9 in Behaviors and No. 14 in Physical Environment.

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

Louisiana was the least healthy state in this year’s report, ranking No. 49 for women and No. 50 for children. It ranked in the bottom five states in Social and Economic Factors (No. 48), Physical Environment (No. 49), Behaviors (No. 49) and Health Outcomes (No. 50). In Clinical Care, Louisiana ranked No. 23.

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

This graph displays the state scores and ranks, with the least healthy states on the top left and the healthiest states on the top right. The distance between bars shows the difference between state scores. For example, Massachusetts (No. 1) and Vermont (No. 2), although close in ranking, have a sizable difference in score, meaning Vermont would need to make improvements in many measures to improve its rank. There is also a large gap in score between Alabama (No. 45) and West Virginia (No. 46).

To further explore state-level data, see Explore Data. The website features downloadable State Summaries for each state and the District of Columbia. Each summary describes state-specific strengths, challenges, key findings and rankings for individual measures, allowing users to identify which measures positively or negatively influenced each state’s overall rank. This can be visualized by selecting a state in the Explore Data section. Disparity ratios, which indicate the relative difference between two groups within a demographic, are available for select measures in the website’s State Summaries. The website also features an Adjust My Rank tool that allows users to explore how progress and challenges across key measures can impact a state’s overall rank.