Phoenix ranks 58th in national well-being index

Phoenix and other Arizona cities scored poorly in a recently released national ranking of communities measuring residents’ health and economic well-being.

The Gallup-Heathway Well-Being Index lists the Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale area at No. 58 in a list of 190 metro areas with regard to economic security, access to healthcare, stress and other quality-of-life criteria.


Prescott was the highest ranked Arizona city at No. 56. Tucson was ranked No. 91 and the Kingman-Lake Havasu City area was No. 110.

The top four cities overall were Naples, Fla., Salinas, Calif., Sarasota, Fla., and Fort Collins, Colo. 

The highest ranking large cities were San Jose, Calif., Austin and San Antonio, Texas, and San Diego.

Boulder, Colo., a community that leads the nation with the lowest levels of obesity, was the top city for physical well-being.

Charleston, W. Va., ranked last overall. 

The rankings relied on more than 350,000 phone interviews conducted from January 2014 to December 2015 in all 50 states. 

The survey asked respondents if they had lacked money to buy food or medicine for themselves or family members in the past 12 months, whether they had health insurance, if they had a personal doctor and whether they had visited a dentist in past 12 months. 

The Kingman-Lake Havasu City area was ranked second to last at No. 189 in access to healthcare and third worst at No. 188 in having the lowest number of residents who visited a dentist in the previous 12 months. 

This Well-Being Index is a collaboration between Gallup, Healthways and Health eVillages, a program founded by Donato Tramuto in partnership with the nonprofit  Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights organization and Aptus Health.