25 Healthiest Counties in Illinois | Healthiest Communities

Fourteen of Illinois’ 25 best-performing counties ranked in the top 500 of the 2021 Healthiest Communities rankings, including five that landed in the top 250.

The fourth annual project from U.S. News assessed nearly 3,000 counties and county equivalents 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, walkability, diabetes prevalence, affordable housing, poverty rate and homeownership level are grouped into 10 categories ranging from the economy, equity and population health to the environment, food and nutrition, and public safety. 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.

Illinois’ 25 highest-scoring communities performed best in the public safety, infrastructure and population health categories. On average, they achieved their worst scores in food and nutrition, community vitality and environment.

These are the 25 healthiest communities in Illinois 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.