Who says money can’t buy happiness?
A new ranking of communities across the United States based on the overall mental health of the local population has been released as part of U.S. News & World Report’s 2024 Healthiest Communities project — and some of the best-scoring counties can be found in some of the wealthiest and most desirable parts of the country.
As part of the larger study, each of the nearly 3,000 counties in the fifty states were also very specifically scored on a scale of 0-100 based on how they fared when researchers looked at suicide death rates, deaths of despair (such as drug overdoses or alcohol-related), reports of mental distress in adults and depression diagnoses among Medicare beneficiaries.
The lower those numbers, the better the score — vaulting the city of Honolulu and the rest of the Hawaiian island of Oahu into the #1 spot, giving new meaning to the old local saying, “Lucky we live Hawaii.”
The vacation paradise of Maui, with its famed five-star resorts and charming villages, joins bustling Oahu in the top ten.
That list is otherwise dominated by California’s Silicon Valley and the exceedingly affluent counties in the commuter belt surrounding Washington, D.C., along with the millionaire paradise mountain retreats of Jackson, Wyo. and Aspen, Colo.
But you don’t necessarily have to be a mover or a shaker to afford the good life — slipping into the Top 10 with some of the world’s most well-off destinations is little Seward County, Nebraska, proudly taking the number six spot.
The largely rural county of just 17,000 people is an affordable idyll located just a short drive from the Cornhusker State’s thriving capital city of Lincoln.
Nebraska performed well in the Top 25 overall, as a matter of fact, with a total of three counties making the grade.
Meanwhile just one destination in the Northeast made the cut — New York’s own Westchester County, home to towns like wealthy Scarsdale, tony Bedford and super-exclusive North Salem.
West Virginia and other crisis-prone spots in Appalachia predictably dominated the bottom of the list — the Mountain State took six of the ten spots lowest in the rankings.
Unlucky Logan County, WV was #1 — with a thoroughly depressing mental health score of zero.
The 25 places with the best mental health in the United States in 2024
- Honolulu County, Hawaii (Oahu)
- Santa Clara County, California (Silicon Valley)
- Fairfax County, Virginia (Suburban D.C.)
- San Mateo County, California (Silicon Valley)
- Teton County, Wyoming (Jackson/Jackson Hole)
- Seward County, Nebraska
- Arlington County, Virginia (Suburban D.C.)
- Prince George’s County, Maryland (Suburban D.C.)
- Pitkin County, Colorado (Aspen)
- Maui County, Hawaii
- Loudoun County, Virginia (Suburban D.C.)
- Lake County, South Dakota
- Kauai County, Hawaii
- Dakota County, Nebraska
- Los Alamos County, New Mexico
- Lincoln County, South Dakota
- Iowa County, Wisconsin
- Alexandria, Virginia (Suburban D.C.)
- Fort Bend County, Texas
- Summit County, Colorado
- Prince William County, Virginia (Suburban D.C.)
- Westchester County, New York
- Washington County, Nebraska
- Montgomery County, Maryland (Suburban D.C.)
- Forsyth County, Georgia (Suburban Atlanta)