Forsyth and Oconee counties are the only two Georgia communities with an overall ranking in the top 50 in U.S. News & World Report’s list of 2024 Healthiest Communities.
The rankings, announced Tuesday, are based on an evaluation of 2,800 communities nationwide looking at how they perform across 92 health and health-related metrics. The metrics capture how the communities best serve their residents in 10 primary categories: Community Vitality, Economy, Education, Environment, Equity, Food and Nutrition, Population Health, Housing, Infrastructure, and Public Safety. Only the top 500 counties receive a ranking.
Forsyth County, in metro Atlanta, and Oconee County, located outside Athens, received overall rankings of 33 and 40, respectively. Other Georgia counties that received overall rankings were Fayette (110th), Columbia (160th), Harris (205th), Cherokee (286th), Cobb (305th) and Bryan (461st).
To compile the rankings and create the overall Healthiest Communities project, U.S. News partnered with the University of Missouri Extension Center for Applied Research and Engagement Systems, known as CARES. The analysis used more than 90 metrics and hundreds of thousands of data points to capture how counties best serve their residents across the 10 main categories.
The rankings are based on metrics drawn from sources including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
“Evaluating community health is crucial as we consider the well-being of citizens across our country,” said Julia Haines, U.S. News data editor, in a news release. “The Healthiest Communities rankings examine which communities offer the greatest opportunity to live a healthy, productive life. They also highlight that even the ‘healthiest’ communities struggle in certain areas.”
Although Forsyth was ranked 33rd overall, it only ranked in the top 50 in one of the 10 primary categories — 16th in the Economy category. In subcategories, it was in the top 50 for Educational Achievement (21st), Mental Health (41st), Income (16th), Opportunity (42nd), Housing Quality (22nd), Nutrition (18th), Injuries (24th) and Community Stability (13th).
But it was ranked 404th and 349th in the categories of Housing and Public Safety, respectively. Forsyth ranked 421st in the subcategory of Income Equity and did not rank at all in Health Equity, Social Equity, Housing Affordability, Housing Capacity or any of the subcategories under Environment and Infrastructure.
Forsyth County has a troubled history with race that is remembered nationally, though efforts have been made to confront the county’s past.
In 1912, a white mob forced nearly 1,100 Black residents from their homes in the county after the murder of a white woman resulted in a racial cleansing that lasted decades. According to 2020 census data, about 4.3% of Forsyth’s population is Black, 18% is Asian, 10% is Latino, and 63.4% is white.
For the second time since 2018, Falls Church, Virginia claimed the top spot in the rankings with the highest overall score. It achieved top 20 results across five of the 10 categories, including a No. 1 ranking in Education, a No. 4 ranking in Population Health and a No. 6 ranking in Economy.
However, Falls Church lands outside the project’s threshold for the top-performing communities in the Equity and Housing categories.
The size of each community’s gender wage gap was a new measure added to this year’s rankings. Eureka County, Nevada had the most prevalent gender wage gap. But in eight Georgia counties, women’s median earnings met or exceeded those of men, according to the findings. Those counties are Atkinson, Calhoun, Wheeler, Treutlen, Echols, Turner, Rockdale and Rabun.
Top 10 healthiest communities:
1. Falls Church, Virginia
2. Los Alamos County, New Mexico
3. Douglas County, Colorado
4. Sioux County, Iowa
5. Hamilton County, Indiana
6. Dallas County, Iowa
7. Ozaukee County, Wisconsin
8. Carver County, Minnesota
9. Bremer County, Iowa
10. Morgan County, Utah
Georgia counties that received an overall ranking
33. Forsyth County
40. Oconee County
110. Fayette County
160. Columbia County
205. Harris County
286. Cherokee County
305. Cobb County
461. Bryan County
