Linking Health and Economic Prosperity: A Study of U.S. Metro Areas

Research shows that economic vitality improves health. But does good health improve economic vitality? 

That’s what Wilder Research and the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis set out to learn in a national study for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and AcademyHealth. We examined the relationship between population health and economic activity in U.S. metropolitan areas through an analysis of data spanning 15 years. The results suggest that population health really does contribute meaningfully to a community’s economic strength, and that good community health helps protects against economic shocks, like the Great Recession.