State Rankings

Rankings included in the 2025 Senior Report are derived from 36 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.

Vermont is the healthiest state in this year’s Senior Report, climbing two places from last year. It ranks among the top five states in model categories Social and Economic Factors (No. 2) and Behaviors (No. 1). Vermont is No. 14 in Clinical Care, No. 15 in Health Outcomes and No. 22 in Physical Environment. 

Strengths: Low prevalence of multiple chronic conditions, high rate of volunteer participation and high prevalence of exercise

Challenges: High suicide rate, high prevalence of falls and low hospice care use

Differences:

Colorado (No. 2), Washington (No. 3), Utah (No. 4) and Connecticut (No. 5) complete the top five healthiest states for older adults.

Mississippi is the least healthy state in this year’s Senior Report for the fourth consecutive year. It ranks in the bottom five states in Social and Economic Factors (No. 50), Behaviors (No. 46) and Clinical Care (No. 50). Mississippi is No. 44 in Health Outcomes and No. 12 in Physical Environment.

Strengths: Low prevalence of excessive drinking, high percentage of older adults with a dedicated health care provider and low housing cost burden

Challenges: High early death rate, high poverty rate and low prevalence of exercise

Differences:

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

The graph below displays the state scores in rank order, 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, while Georgia (No. 38) and Indiana (No. 37) are close in ranking, they have a large difference in score, meaning Georgia 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 Tennessee (No. 43) and Missouri (No. 42), as well as between West Virginia (No. 48) and Oklahoma (No. 47).

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. All this information and more is also available on the View State Data pages (accessible from the Explore Data menu), which feature dynamic visualizations and an Adjust My Rank tool that allows users to explore how progress and challenges across key measures might affect a state’s overall rank.