Breathe Deep: National Ranking Shows Bucks County to Be a Pretty Healthy Place to Live

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Bucks County nationally rated for healthy lifestyles
Image via h wawan at Creative Commons.

Maybe it’s our abundance of fresh air and outdoor exercise opportunities. Maybe it’s the cardiovascular benefit of an occasional visit to our brewpubs and wineries. But whatever the root of it, Bucks County is a pretty healthful place to live, according to a new ranking published by U.S. News & World Report.

The publication’s analysts compared more than 3,000 counties and county-equivalents against 84 benchmarks. The criteria spanned ten health and health-related categories. The report weighted population health highest.

Bucks County ranked No. 271 (out of 500), with an overall population health score of 72. The county improved significantly from last year, when it ranked at No. 292.

Bucks County landed above the 50th percentile in part to its high scores in the population health category. Drilling down into the data reveals the components of our fit lifestyle:

  • Life expectancy is 79.7 years, higher than the national median of 77.5 years
  • The population of smokers — 16 percent — is below the national median of 21.1 percent
  • Uninsured residents comprise 5.2 percent of the population, compared with the national median of 10.6 percent

Montgomery County and Chester County also made the list, at No. 93 and No. 106, respectively. Delaware County did not make the list.

See the full ranking at U.S. News & World Report.

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