The best small cities for health and education are located in Massachusetts and Virginia, WalletHub found.
WalletHub compared 1,318 cities with population sizes between 25,000 and 100,000 across five dimensions: affordability, economic health, education and health, quality of life, and safety. The dimensions consisted of 45 metrics graded on a 100-point scale, with 100 representing the most favorable conditions. The total scores for each metric were weighted and combined to create the overall score.
To determine the cities' health scores, WalletHub assigned points based on their share of insured population, premature-death rate, share of adults in poor or fair health, share of live births with low birthweight, share of obese adults, share of physically inactive adults and share of population with limited access to healthy foods.
Here are the top 10 small cities for health and education, along with their overall score:
Lexington Mass. — 70.23
Newton, Mass. — 67.42
Arlington, Mass. — 68.06
Reading, Mass. — 66.42
Belmont, Mass. — 66.98
Burlington, Mass. — 65.44
Melrose, Mass. — 67.24
Wakefield, Mass. — 65.95
McLean, Va. — 64.34
Ashburn, Va. — 66.02