Richard Florida on the Geography of Health

Richard Florida and Charlotta Mellander at the Martin Prosperity Institute find a number of correlations between geography and health:

"The kinds of work people do also plays a role in smoking and obesity levels. Metros with higher percentages of creative class workers do consistently better on the Metro Health Index (the correlation is .38), while metros with higher shares of blue-collar workers do significantly worse (a correlation of -.43). Metros with greater shares of high-tech industry also have higher scores on the Metro Health Index (with a correlation of.46)."