What's behind the rankings
A CLOSER LOOK: 'HEALTHIEST CITY'
Burlington, Vt., was billed in a blizzard of reports this month as the nation's healthiest city -- and Huntingon, W.Va., as least healthy -- based on survey results compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It's one of many such "healthy city" rankings periodically splashed across the news.
How do these lists get compiled? And what makes a city "healthiest" anyway? Depending what factors you focus on, the answers can be quite different. Here's a closer look.
Every year the CDC, in collaboration with state and community health departments, surveys U.S. residents on a variety of health-related topics. Questions fall into three main areas: health indicators (Such as do you have diabetes?), preventive practices (Have you had a checkup?) and health-risk behaviors (Do you exercise? Do you drink?).
The Burlington healthiest city designation was based on answers to a single question posed in 2006 (and published in a CDC report in August). Only 168 of the town's 2,045 residents (8.2%) who responded to a telephone survey said their health generally was "poor" or "fair." Everyone else answered "good," "very good," or "excellent."
CDC officials say they don't rank cities -- they just compile data. They also say that other cities had very similar results to Burlington, including Sioux Falls, S.D. (only 8.8% complained of less than good health), Minneapolis, Minn. (9.4%), Barre, Vt., and Lincoln, Neb. (both at 9.5%), Virginia Beach, Va. (9.7%), Colorado Springs, Colo. (9.8%), and Akron, Ohio (9.9%). Report coauthor Dr. Wayne Giles, who directs the CDC's division of adult and community health, says there is no detectable difference among these places. (In Los Angeles, 23.5% of respondents reported either fair or poor health.)
You might think asking people about their own health would be a fairly unreliable indicator for public health officials. But, Giles says, "It does do very well in terms of being a predictor, in terms of overall mortality and overall morbidity."
Americans also answered questions about health insurance, smoking, seat belt use, flu shots, cancer screenings and chronic health conditions. Of the 156 communities included in this year's CDC report, Provo, Utah, stands alone in having the lowest smoking rate: Only 5.9% of respondents said they had smoked at least 100 cigarettes in their lives. Two other cities squeak in with smoking rates under 10% -- Ogden, Utah (9.5%), and San Diego (9.7 %).
