Health and Wealth - Are They Related and How Does Your State Measure Up?

I recently began a challenge to help people improve their finances and overall health. People have responded to the challenge but I began to wonder, as I evaluated where people lived who were joining the challenge, if where a person lived affects their overall well being, and if a locations propensities of health and financial well being are related. So I compared the health and credit ratings among the top five states and bottom five states in both health ratings and credit ratings. I decided not to measure wealth, as the extreme wealth of a small percentage of people could skew the entire state. Rather, I felt credit ratings would be a more accurate measure of an individual person's financial health.I didn't begin this process to prove anything or to highlight comparisons, but I found there were a few commonalities when comparing health and credit rankings and the results were both surprising and a little troubling. It seems if a state has a propensity to be healthy, it is also more likely to be more financially secure according to their credit scores, and similarly states that were found to be unhealthy were also more likely to have lower credit scores.

Numbers in parentheses indicate comparisons regarding credit scores in both top and bottom five rankings.

States that are in bold shared rankings in the top and bottom five in both health and credit.

Top Five

1. Vermont (706)

2. Hawaii (688)

3. New Hampshire (703)

4. Minnesota (707)

5. Utah (683)

Bottom Five

1. Louisiana (663)

2. Mississippi (668)

3. South Carolina (665)

4. Tennessee (679)

5. Texas (651)

The health rankings above were based on physical activity, tobacco use, access to health insurance, regular doctor visits, number of children in poverty, and regular diet. You can see the obvious correlation between higher credit scores among the healthier states and lower scores among the "unhealthy" states. On a side note that is somewhat disturbing the U.S. ranked 2nd to last on a UNICEF study of "rich" countries regarding the health status of children, and we ranked 3rd to last according to the World Heath Organization among developed countries.

Regarding credit ratings the national average for credit ratings is 680. The ranges in credit scores for the majority of people are from 600-800.

State Rankings According to Credit Scores

Top Five

1. South Dakota (710)

2. Minnesota (707)

3. North Dakota, Vermont (706)

4. New Hampshire, Massachusetts (703)

5. Montana (701)

Bottom Five

1. Texas (651)

2. Nevada (655)

3. Arizona (659)

4. New Mexico, Louisiana (663)

5. South Carolina (665)

Interestingly no state was found to be ranking high in credit and lower in health rankings, or high in health standings and low in credit ratings. I am sure there are more scientific methods of comparing this data and I realize the overview of a few websites and the information provided is not an in-depth study of all factors involved, but there does seem to be a strong correlation between a states propensities in health and their overall credit rating.