Caring.com’s Senior Living Report

Methodology

Caring.com Best Places

Caring.com’s 2022 Senior Living Report was created to identify the cities and states that provide the best services, affordable lifestyles, and most opportunities for seniors and older adults. In this report, all 50 states and 300 cities across the US are graded using 46 metrics split into five categories that cover everything from average housing costs to the quality of the public transportation system.

Why We Created this Report

While a person’s employer and other ties tend to play a large role in where most adults live, seniors often have the luxury of choosing their state and city of residence based on factors such as quality of life, access to health care, and cost of living. To help older adults make this very important decision, our team of researchers spent countless hours researching and developing metrics and using them to grade locations across the country.

Our Metrics

Our team of researchers and senior living experts carefully chose each of our metrics, and they each play a key role in determining the opportunity for seniors in a given area to live a full, happy life. After filtering out redundant or superfluous data points, we were left with 46 key metrics.

Next, our team grouped the 46 metrics into five categories. We then partnered with YouGov to survey 1,000 Americans over the age of 55 to find which of these categories is most important to them. We combined those responses with our senior living expert’s opinions to form weights for each of the five categories. The weights represent each main category’s overall importance in determining the quality of life and senior friendliness in a particular area.

The five categories of metrics that we developed along with their weights are listed below:

Health Care

Senior Living & Housing

Transportation

Quality of Life

Affordability

Health Care

Health Care makes up about one-fourth of the score for each state and area graded in this report. The reason we gave this category such a high weight is that it’s one of the first and most important considerations for seniors when they are contemplating moving. Because adults tend to need more frequent health services as they age, the availability and quality of health care in an area play a significant role in senior residents’ wellness and quality of life.

The Health Care category is made up of 14 metrics relating to the quality and availability of health care in the area, as well as metrics showing the effectiveness of the COVID-19 response. The metrics included in this category measure factors such as how many primary care physicians, dentists, mental health professionals, and other physicians there are in the state per 100,000 people. On the COVID-19 front, examples of metrics include cases per 100,000 population, COVID-19 case fatality rate, and the percentage of adults fully vaccinated against COVID-19 as of June 2022.

Senior Living & Housing

With housing shortages becoming more common around the nation, a valid reason for older adults to move is the availability of quality, accessible housing that will meet their needs both now and in the future. This category made up about 15% of the final score.

The four metrics in this group rate how available suitable housing is for seniors in a given area. Examples of metrics in this category include the number of subsidized housing units per 10,000 people, the percentage of multi-family homes, and the percentage of houses with no-step entrances.

Transportation

Transportation made up 10 percent of the final score because safe, affordable transportation puts an active, full lifestyle within reach for older adults. Whether due to health conditions like impaired vision or the cost of owning a vehicle, many seniors are unable to drive themselves. This makes having cost-effective and accessible transportation options for getting to and from doctors’ appointments, social outings, and general errands an important resource. But, not all areas offer equal access to these transportation services.

The metrics in this group examine how senior-friendly the transportation system is in a given area. Examples of metrics include crash rates, household transportation costs, and the frequency and availability of local transit services.

Quality of Life

Quality of Life is our broadest group of metrics and is somewhat of a catch-all for metrics that measure seniors’ access and opportunity for an active, vibrant life. We included this as one of the top three categories with a weight of about 20 percent because of the role these factors play in giving seniors the opportunity for an active lifestyle, that helps them remain both happy and healthy.

The 17 individual metrics in this group measure key indicators of Quality of Life and can be split into two sub-groups – those that measure the availability of enriching activities and services, and the prevalence of factors that inhibit an active, healthy lifestyle. Measured in the first sub-group is the availability of things like museums, libraries, parks, fresh markets, and the like. In the second sub-group, the quality of the air and water were examined.

Affordability

Our experts and the seniors we surveyed agree – affordability is a key factor in determining where older adults choose to retire. Because of how important it is to seniors, this category of metrics makes up one-third of the final score.

This category measures both the cost of housing, as well as the availability of jobs for seniors that need to supplement their retirement savings and social security. In addition to simply measuring the cost of housing, the relative burden of housing costs and the disparity in incomes among different socioeconomic groups was also considered.