Connecticut's Quality of Life Ranked By U.S. News: Do You Agree?

Connecticut comes in the middle of the road for quality of life in the United States, according to U.S. News’ newly released rankings of best states in the country. The overall rankings, which considered eight factors, ranked Connecticut as the 24th best state in America.

Patch reported on the rankings earlier this week and you can read more about how Connecticut performed in the eight categories here.

The quality of life category accounted for a little over eight percent of the overall rankings and looked at two factors: natural environment and social environment. To determine how good a state’s natural environment is, U.S. News evaluated drinking water quality, air quality, toxic chemical pollution per square mile and the risk of long term health effects from pollution.

For the social environment category, U.S. News looked at community engagement, social support and voter participation. Community engagement and social support were measured based on survey results while voter participation was measured by evaluating average voter turnout in the 2016 election. Connecticut ranked 39th in the social environment category.

The top 10 states for quality of life in the U.S. are:

• North Dakota
• Minnesota
• Wisconsin
• New Hampshire
• South Dakota
• Mississippi
• Arkansas
• New Mexico
• Iowa
• Colorado

The bottom 10 states for quality of life are:

• Ohio
• Virginia
• Louisiana
• Nevada
• Pennsylvania
• West Virginia
• Texas
• Illinois
• Indiana
• New Jersey
• California

The data for the rankings came from McKinsey & Company’s Leading States Index. U.S. News ranked the categories and subcategories from 1 to 50 before creating overall rankings. (Read more about U.S. News’ methodology here.)

See the full U.S. News rankings here.

Patch file photo