This is New Jersey’s unhealthiest city

This is one distinction you don’t want to own: the unhealthiest city in a state.

The people at 24/7 Wall St. ranked cities in each state to find out which one was the least healthy. How did they do this?

To measure and rank the health of the population in cities in every state, 24/7 Tempo calculated an index using eight health measures such as potential life lost, smoking rate, and percentage reporting fair or poor health, using data from the 2023 County Health Rankings & Roadmaps program of the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute. In all, 384 metro areas were considered to determine the least healthy one in every state.

You wouldn’t think New Jersey would have many unhealthy cities; we have a lower smoking rate than the national average and there are many outdoor activities to pursue, from hiking and swimming to just walking along the shore.

But somebody had to be the worst and in New Jersey, the unhealthiest city is the Bridgeton/Vineland area (the two are considered the same metropolitan statistical area).

Here are the metrics and results for Bridgeton/Vineland:

🔵 Adults in fair or poor health: 17.8% (state: 10.8%)
🔵 Adult smoking rate: 19.1% (state: 11.1%)
🔵 Adult obesity rate: 35.7% (state: 27.7%)
🔵 Median household income: $58,389 (state: $89,296)

New York’s unhealthiest city is Elmira and Pennsylvania’s is Johnstown.

Last month, 24/7 Wall St. announced the healthiest city in each state; New Jersey’s winner was Trenton/Princeton with the following metrics:

🔵 Adults in fair or poor health: 11.2% (state: 10.8%)
🔵 Adult smoking rate: 12.3% (state: 11.1%)-
🔵 Adult obesity rate: 28.4% (state: 27.7%)-
🔵 Median household income: $87,662 (state: $89,296)

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Bill Doyle only.

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