Quality of life is a measure of comfort, health, and happiness by a person or a group of people. Quality of life is determined by both material factors, such as income and housing, and broader considerations like health, education, and freedom. Each year, US & World News releases its “Best States to Live in” report, which ranks states on the quality of life each state provides its residents. In order to determine rankings, U.S. News & World Report considers a wide range of factors, including healthcare, education, economy, infrastructure, opportunity, fiscal stability, crime and corrections, and the natural environment. More information on these categories and what is measured in each can be found below:

Healthcare includes access, quality, and affordability of healthcare, as well as health measurements, such as obesity rates and rates of smoking. Education measures how well public schools perform in terms of testing and graduation rates, as well as tuition costs associated with higher education and college debt load. Economy looks at GDP growth, migration to the state, and new business. Infrastructure includes transportation availability, road quality, communications, and internet access. Opportunity includes poverty rates, cost of living, housing costs and gender and racial equality. Fiscal Stability considers the health of the government's finances, including how well the state balances its budget. Crime and Corrections ranks a state’s public safety and measures prison systems and their populations. Natural Environment looks at the quality of air and water and exposure to pollution.

This statistic shows a ranking of the best U.S. federal states to live in, according to selected metrics and based on a survey among more than 530,000 Americans. The survey was conducted between January 2011 and June 2012. The findings are presented as index scores composed of the scores regarding various parameters*. According to this index, Utah is the city with the highest liveability and life quality, as it scored 7.5 points.

In 2024, across all states in the United States, ********* was ranked first with a health index score of *****, followed by ************ and ************. The health index score was calculated by measuring 42 healthcare metrics relevant to health costs, access, and outcome.

Quality of Life by State 2024

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This dataset provides insights into the quality of life across different states in the United States for the year 2024. Quality of life, encompassing aspects like comfort, health, and happiness, is evaluated through various metrics including affordability, economy, education, and safety. Dive into this dataset to understand how different states fare in terms of overall quality of life and its individual components.

Columns Description

• State: The name of the U.S. state.
• QualityOfLifeTotalScore: The total score representing the overall quality of life for the respective state. This score is calculated based on various quality of life metrics.
• QualityOfLifeQualityOfLife: The score representing the quality of life aspect for the respective state. This aspect may include subjective factors related to happiness, satisfaction, and overall well-being. Higher scores may indicate a higher level of subjective well-being, happiness, or overall satisfaction among residents. Lower scores could suggest lower levels of subjective well-being.
• QualityOfLifeAffordability: The score representing the affordability aspect of the quality of life for the respective state. This aspect evaluates factors such as cost of living, housing affordability, and income levels. Higher scores typically indicate greater affordability of housing, cost of living, and basic necessities. Lower scores may suggest that these essentials are less accessible or more expensive for residents.
• QualityOfLifeEconomy: The score representing the economic aspect of the quality of life for the respective state. This aspect assesses factors such as employment opportunities, economic growth, and income distribution. Higher scores may reflect a stronger economy with more job opportunities, higher incomes, and lower levels of poverty. Lower scores might indicate economic challenges such as unemployment or income inequality.
• QualityOfLifeEducationAndHealth: The score representing the education and health aspect of the quality of life for the respective state. This aspect considers factors such as access to quality education, healthcare facilities, and overall public health indicators. Higher scores generally signify better access to quality education, healthcare services, and overall public health. Lower scores may indicate deficiencies in these areas, such as limited access to healthcare or lower educational attainment levels.
• QualityOfLifeSafety: The score representing the safety aspect of the quality of life for the respective state. This aspect evaluates factors such as crime rates, public safety measures, and community well-being initiatives. Higher scores suggest lower crime rates, better community safety, and a higher sense of security among residents. Lower scores may indicate higher crime rates or concerns about safety.

These descriptions provide an overview of what each column represents and the specific aspects of quality of life they assess for each U.S. state.

In an April 2024 online survey, an overwhelming majority of respondents in the United States said that **** U.S. dollars per hour is not enough for the average American worker to have a decent quality of life. The U.S. federal minimum wage has not been raised since 2009. Since then, many states have raised the wage, with a number of states having more than doubled the federal minimum.

The U.S. Census defines Asian Americans as individuals having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent (U.S. Office of Management and Budget, 1997). As a broad racial category, Asian Americans are the fastest-growing minority group in the United States (U.S. Census Bureau, 2012). The growth rate of 42.9% in Asian Americans between 2000 and 2010 is phenomenal given that the corresponding figure for the U.S. total population is only 9.3% (see Figure 1). Currently, Asian Americans make up 5.6% of the total U.S. population and are projected to reach 10% by 2050. It is particularly notable that Asians have recently overtaken Hispanics as the largest group of new immigrants to the U.S. (Pew Research Center, 2015). The rapid growth rate and unique challenges as a new immigrant group call for a better understanding of the social and health needs of the Asian American population.

Of the most populous cities in the U.S., San Jose, California had the highest annual income requirement at ******* U.S. dollars annually for homeowners to have an affordable and comfortable life in 2024. This can be compared to Houston, Texas, where homeowners needed an annual income of ****** U.S. dollars in 2024.

Users can obtain descriptions, maps, profiles, and ranks of U.S. metropolitan areas pertaining to quality of life, diversity, and opportunities for racial and ethnic groups in the U.S. BackgroundThe Diversity Data project operates a website for users to explore how U.S. metropolitan areas perform on evidence-based social measures affecting quality of life, diversity and opportunity for racial and ethnic groups in the United States. These indicators capture a broad definition of quality of life and health, including opportunities for good schools, housing, jobs, wages, health and social services, and safe neighborhoods. This is a useful resource for people inter ested in advocating for policy and social change regarding neighborhood integration, residential mobility, anti-discrimination in housing, urban renewal, school quality and economic opportunities. The Diversity Data project is an ongoing project of the Harvard School of Public Health (Department of Society, Human Development and Health). User FunctionalityUsers can obtain a description, profile and rank of U.S. metropolitan areas and compare ranks across metropolitan areas. Users can also generate maps which demonstrate the distribution of these measures across the United States. Demographic information is available by race/ethnicity. Data NotesData are derived from multiple sources including: the U.S. Census Bureau; National Center for Health Statistics' Vital Statistics Natality Birth Data; Natio nal Center for Education Statistics; Union CPS Utilities Data CD; National Low Income Housing Coalition; Freddie Mac Conventional Mortgage Home Price Index; Neighborhood Change Database; Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University; Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMD); Dr. Russ Lopez, Boston University School of Public Health, Department of Environmental Health; HUD State of the Cities Data Systems; Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; and Texas Transportation Institute. Years in which the data were collected are indicated with the measure. Information is available for metropolitan areas. The website does not indicate when the data are updated.

This data publication contains racial/ethnic population data within a 10-minute walk around each of 122,988 urban parks across the United States. These data represent information on the location of publicly accessible parks from the Trust for Public Lands ParkServe 2022 database. The ParkServe data also includes information about trail length, trail location, and playground size and location from 2022. Information on tree canopy comes from the Mult-Resolution Land Characteristics Consortium National Land Cover Database released in 2021 and which is based on imagery from 2019. Heat was calculated based on USGS Landsat data from June, July, and August of 2018, 2019, and 2020. Noise was based on modeled data from a 2014 National Parks Service Mapping Sound Project. Demographic information was aggregated to the block level excluding water using the United States 2020 Census. Data in this package include a comma-separated values (CSV) file with information about the characteristics of each park (e.g., size, number of trails, average land surface temperature), as well as transformed versions of this CSV file where parks are grouped by census division or other characteristics for the purpose of analysis. Additionally, CSV files are provided where the full data are summarized by both census division and racial/ethnic groups (e.g., average temperature of parks in division 1) as well as the full results of statistical tests such as two way ANOVAs. The R code included in this package allows the user to reproduce the figures and conduct all statistical analysis from the associated article.Our study demonstrates how inequities in access to high quality parks are widespread across the country. We compared racial/ethnic differences in access to higher quality parks within cities across the continental United States to answer the following research questions: 1) What is the racial/ethnic composition of the population living within a 10-minute walk of U.S. urban parks in comparison to that city as a whole? 2) Does the distribution of park amenities differ with the racial/ethnic composition of surrounding neighborhoods? 3) How do these patterns in proximity and quality vary across different regions of the U.S.?For more information about this study and these data, see Winkler et al. (2024).

These data were published on 09/10/2024. Minor metadata updates made on 11/08/2024.

From the Web site: USA.com is your local guide to cities, towns, and neighborhoods in the United States, providing easy to use and comprehensive local services and information, business information and population demographics, travel and tourism, directory services, and local business and consumer services. Our roadmap of offerings is wide and vast like the land that we cover; however, our team is dedicated to ensure that we have the best possible offering for the United States and we deploy each part of our website only once it has met our high quality standards. Therefore you will see our site grow as more of the services mentioned above are deployed over the upcoming months. We encourage you to check back regularly and watch as USA.com provides more and more value and more meaningful impact to your life or your visit to the USA.

An Internet-based survey was administered to a national sample of individuals with recent nursing home experience. The survey elicited preferences using both contingent evaluation (CV) experiments as well as the assessment of quality of the nursing home. The CV experiments ask the respondent if they or their family member would be willing to move to a higher quality nursing home with a greater travel time. Information about the health status, demographic status, and economic status of the respondent and/or family member was also collected. The goals of the study were (1) To develop two alternative composite measures to the CMS 5 Star rating system that includes consumer preferences. (2) Measure variation in consumer preferences based on socio-demographics and health conditions.

This study was designed to collect comprehensive data on the types of "crime prevention through environmental design" (CPTED) methods used by cities of 30,000 population and larger, the extent to which these methods were used, and their perceived effectiveness. A related goal was to discern trends, variations, and expansion of CPTED principles traditionally employed in crime prevention and deterrence. "Security by design" stems from the theory that proper design and effective use of the built environment can lead to a reduction in the incidence and fear of crime and an improvement in quality of life. Examples are improving street lighting in high-crime locations, traffic re-routing and control to hamper drug trafficking and other crimes, inclusion of security provisions in city building codes, and comprehensive review of planned development to ensure careful consideration of security. To gather these data, the United States Conference of Mayors (USCM), which had previously studied a variety of issues including the fear of crime, mailed a survey to the mayors of 1,060 cities in 1994. Follow-up surveys were sent in 1995 and 1996. The surveys gathered information about the role of CPTED in a variety of local government policies and procedures, local ordinances, and regulations relating to building, local development, and zoning. Information was also collected on processes that offered opportunities for integrating CPTED principles into local development or redevelopment and the incorporation of CPTED into decisions about the location, design, and management of public facilities. Questions focused on whether the city used CPTED principles, which CPTED techniques were used (architectural features, landscaping and landscape materials, land-use planning, physical security devices, traffic circulation systems, or other), the city department with primary responsibility for ensuring compliance with CPTED zoning ordinances/building codes and other departments that actively participated in that enforcement (mayor's office, fire department, public works department, planning department, city manager, economic development office, police department, building department, parks and recreation, zoning department, city attorney, community development office, or other), the review process for proposed development, security measures for public facilities, traffic diversion and control, and urban beautification programs. Respondents were also asked about other security-by-design features being used, including whether they were mandatory or optional, if optional, how they were instituted (legislation, regulation, state building code, or other), and if applicable, how they were legislated (city ordinance, city resolution, or state law). Information was also collected on the perceived effectiveness of each technique, if local development regulations existed regarding convenience stores, if joint code enforcement was in place, if banks, neighborhood groups, private security agencies, or other groups were involved in the traffic diversion and control program, and the responding city's population, per capita income, and form of government.

ObjectivesNational health insurance is now common in most developed countries. This study reviews the evidence and synthesizes the cost-effectiveness information for national health insurance or disability insurance programs across high-income countries.Data sourcesA literature search using health, economics and systematic review electronic databases (PubMed, Embase, Medline, Econlit, RepEc, Cochrane library and Campbell library), was conducted from April to October 2015.Study selectionTwo reviewers independently selected relevant studies by applying screening criteria to the title and keywords fields, followed by a detailed examination of abstracts.Data extractionStudies were selected for data extraction using a quality assessment form consisting of five questions. Only studies with positive answers to all five screening questions were selected for data extraction. Data were entered into a data extraction form by one reviewer and verified by another.Evidence synthesisData on costs and quality of life in control and treatment groups were used to draw distributions for synthesis. We chose the log-normal distribution for both cost and quality-of-life data to reflect non-negative value and high skew. The results were synthesized using a Monte Carlo simulation, with 10,000 repetitions, to estimate the overall cost-effectiveness of national health insurance programs.ResultsFour studies from the United States that examined the cost-effectiveness of national health insurance were included in the review. One study examined the effects of medical expenditure, and the remaining studies examined the cost-effectiveness of health insurance reforms. The incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) ranged from US$23,000 to US$64,000 per QALY. The combined results showed that national health insurance is associated with an average incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of US$51,300 per quality-adjusted life year (QALY). Based on the standard threshold for cost-effectiveness, national insurance programs are cost-effective interventions.ConclusionsAlthough national health insurance programs have been introduced in most developed countries, only a few studies have examined their cost-effectiveness. All the selected studies revealed strong evidence to support health insurance programs or health reforms in the United States. The average ICER in this study is below the standard threshold for cost-effectiveness used in the US. The small number of relevant studies is the main limitation of this study.

In an April 2024 online survey, an overwhelming majority of respondents in the United States, regardless of which political party they identified with, said that **** U.S. dollars per hour is not enough for the average American worker to have a decent quality of life. The U.S. federal minimum wage has not been raised since 2009. Since then, many states have raised the wage, with a number of states having more than doubled the federal minimum.

This catalog record includes detailed variable-level descriptions, enabling data discovery and comparison. The data are not archived at ICPSR. Users should consult the data owners (via the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research) directly for details on obtaining the data. This collection includes variable-level metadata of Poll # 2006-PRIOR1: Priorities 1--Public Health, a survey from the Harvard School of Public Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation conducted by ICR-International Communications Research. Topics covered in this survey include: Rating of nation's system for protecting the public from health threats/preventing illness Diseases/health conditions posing the greatest threat to the public Most important diseases/health conditions for the government to address Quality of life in community Rating of aspects of life in community Community problems Health conditions in community Importance of action to improve nation's health The data and documentation files for this survey are available through the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research [Roper #31092314]. Frequencies and summary statistics for the 112 variables from this survey are available through the ICPSR social science variable database and can be accessed from the Variables tab.

This catalog record includes detailed variable-level descriptions, enabling data discovery and comparison. The data are not archived at ICPSR. Users should consult the data owners (via the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research) directly for details on obtaining the data. This collection includes variable-level metadata of African Americans' Lives Today, a survey from National Public Radio, the Harvard School of Public Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation conducted by Social Science Research Solutions (SSRS). Topics covered in this survey include: Satisfaction with life and environment Life improvements Satisfaction with living area Living area improvements Most important local issue Other black people in area Amount of black friends Economic class Rating various public institutions Rating quality of various resources Amount of discrimination Reason for discrimination Personal financial situation Economic class growing up Achieving American dream Better off than parents Importance of religion Making decisions about children Child schooling Rating child's school Black children in school Desired level of child's education Seeking long-term relationship Desire to marry Satisfaction with dating opportunities Race of romantic dates Looking for work Career success Unemployment concerns Health insurance and healthcare Access to care Medical expenses Quality of doctors Health and wellness Social and family life The data and documentation files for this survey are available through the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research [Roper #31092356]. Frequencies and summary statistics for the 204 variables from this survey are available through the ICPSR social science variable database and can be accessed from the Variables tab.

This statistic shows the results of a survey in 22 states asking respondents who they think has a better life in their country - men or women. The survey was conducted in 2010. 39 percent of respondents from the United States thought that men had a better life in their country, while 23 percent thought that a woman's life in the United States is better than a man's. 24 percent of American respondents thought the life quality of men and women in the United States is the same.

In 2022, the states with the highest number of HIV diagnoses were Texas, California, and Florida. That year, there were a total of around 37,601 HIV diagnoses in the United States. Of these, 4,896 were diagnosed in Texas. HIV infections have been decreasing globally for many years. In the year 2000, there were 2.8 million new infections worldwide, but this number had decreased to around 1.3 million new infections by 2023. The number of people living with HIV remains fairly steady, but the number of those that have died due to AIDS has reached some of its lowest peaks in a decade. Currently, there is no functional cure for HIV or AIDS, but improvements in therapies and treatments have enabled those living with HIV to have a much improved quality of life.

From the mid-19th century until today, life expectancy at birth in the United States has roughly doubled, from 39.4 years in 1850 to 79.6 years in 2025. It is estimated that life expectancy in the U.S. began its upward trajectory in the 1880s, largely driven by the decline in infant and child mortality through factors such as vaccination programs, antibiotics, and other healthcare advancements. Improved food security and access to clean water, as well as general increases in living standards (such as better housing, education, and increased safety) also contributed to a rise in life expectancy across all age brackets. There were notable dips in life expectancy; with an eight year drop during the American Civil War in the 1860s, a seven year drop during the Spanish Flu empidemic in 1918, and a 2.5 year drop during the Covid-19 pandemic. There were also notable plateaus (and minor decreases) not due to major historical events, such as that of the 2010s, which has been attributed to a combination of factors such as unhealthy lifestyles, poor access to healthcare, poverty, and increased suicide rates, among others. However, despite the rate of progress slowing since the 1950s, most decades do see a general increase in the long term, and current UN projections predict that life expectancy at birth in the U.S. will increase by another nine years before the end of the century.

In 2024, the U.S. GDP increased from the previous year to about 29.18 trillion U.S. dollars. Gross domestic product (GDP) refers to the market value of all goods and services produced within a country. In 2024, the United States has the largest economy in the world. What is GDP? Gross domestic product is one of the most important indicators used to analyze the health of an economy. GDP is defined by the BEA as the market value of goods and services produced by labor and property in the United States, regardless of nationality. It is the primary measure of U.S. production. The OECD defines GDP as an aggregate measure of production equal to the sum of the gross values added of all resident, institutional units engaged in production (plus any taxes, and minus any subsidies, on products not included in the value of their outputs). GDP and national debt Although the United States had the highest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the world in 2022, this does not tell us much about the quality of life in any given country. GDP per capita at purchasing power parity (PPP) is an economic measurement that is thought to be a better method for comparing living standards across countries because it accounts for domestic inflation and variations in the cost of living. While the United States might have the largest economy, the country that ranked highest in terms of GDP at PPP was Luxembourg, amounting to around 141,333 international dollars per capita. Singapore, Ireland, and Qatar also ranked highly on the GDP PPP list, and the United States ranked 9th in 2022.