15 Healthiest Counties in Maryland | Healthiest Communities

Eleven of Maryland’s 24 counties or county equivalents landed in the top 500 of the 2021 Healthiest Communities rankings.

The fourth annual project from U.S. News assessed nearly 3,000 communities nationwide across dozens of metrics, exploring the critical role location plays in the well-being of hundreds of millions of Americans. Metrics such as a community’s crime rates, access to parks, high school graduation and poverty rates, and household income are grouped into 10 categories ranging from the economy, equity and population health to the environment, food and nutrition, and community vitality. Communities are scored on a 100-point scale tied to how they perform relative to one another, and receive a ranking based on their performance as well.

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Overall, Maryland’s 15 highest-scoring communities performed best in the economy, population health and public safety categories. On average, they achieved their worst scores in the housing, environment and community vitality categories.

These are the 15 healthiest communities in Maryland based on their overall scores out of 100 possible points, along with the categories in which they excelled the most and their Healthiest Communities ranking if within the top 500.

Learn more about how communities were ranked and scored in our methodology.