Each year, the University of Wisconsin Public Health Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation rank counties across the U.S. based on their health levels in areas such as physical activity, health insurance coverage, socioeconomic factors and residents’ physical environments.
See 2022 data for seven Houston-area counties below. Explore the complete data sets here.
Fort Bend County ranked within the top five counties statewide and was the top county in the Houston region in both length and quality of life, following a similar trend from 2021. Montgomery and Brazoria counties followed closely behind, while Liberty County ranked in the bottom 50 counties statewide.
Similarly, when looking at factors such as physical activity, the number of physicians and income equality in each county, Fort Bend County was deemed the healthiest county in the Houston region.
However, all Houston-area counties scored poorly when it came to physical environment. This metric is ranked based on air pollution, drinking water violations, housing problems and long commutes. Galveston County earned the highest physical environment ranking in the region at No. 132 of 244 counties ranked statewide, while Harris County was ranked No. 238.
