How We Rate: Health

Emergency Care

Your survival during a medical emergency may depend greatly on the emergency room where you are treated. A 2011 study by HealthGrades, an independent source of physician information and hospital rankings, found large differences in risk-adjusted mortality rates between hospitals and markets. The findings were based on more than 7 million Medicare patient records from 2007 through 2009. Cleveland finished fifth on the list of top 10 cities for emergency care. Buckeye Power: Both Cincinnati (1st) and Dayton (4th) appeared with Cleveland on the list.

Obesity: 7th // Overweight: 17th

There's no hiding it. We're huge. Almost 30 percent of us are obese, making Greater Cleveland the seventh-portliest metro area in the nation. (Most enormous: Memphis (34.3 percent), Louisville, Ky. (33.8 percent), Detroit (33.7 percent.) Another 37.1 percent of us are overweight. (The Centers for Disease Control surveyors asked people their height and weight and calculated their body mass index. Overweight is 25-29.9 BMI; obese is 30 BMI and up.) The Skinny: That means only 33.9 percent of us are at a healthy weight. But if it makes you feel any better, San Francisco is the only metro area where the nonfat form a majority.

Spirited Debate

There's no doubt about it. We booze too much. With nearly one in five Clevelanders considered a "binge drinker," all we can say is: "Yeah, we've been to the Muni Lot, too."

Old Habits Die Hard

Even with our city's world-class medical care, we still have a tough time treating ourselves right. Here's where Cuyahoga County stacks up against national benchmarks established by the University of Wisconsin-based County Health Rankings.

*At least when we do fall ill because of our bad behaviors, we have a 533:1 ratio of population to primary care providers, much better than the 631:1 national benchmark.

Unhappiness
5th (out of 50)

The phrase "Cleveland Frown" doesn't exist for nothing. Blame it on the weather, our perennial sports disappointments or the economy, but Cleveland has a case of the blues, and we're not talking the B.B. King variety. A Bloomsberg BusinessWeek survey pegged us as the fifth unhappiest city in the wake of the financial meltdown, crunching our average 202 cloudy days a year with depression, suicide and crime statistics. Portland, Ore., which has 222 cloudy days a year, and the No. 1 suicide rate in the survey, finished first.

Attitude First Aid: Searching for Positively Cleveland's #HappyInCLE Twitter hashtag will give you a pick-me-up about this place any time you're feeling down. Here were a few of our favorite proclamations of local love from the second weekend in June:

@JAMinCLE: Good time at the #artwalk last nite @TremontWest and ended with pblt from @DimAndDenSum. Deeeelish! #happyincle

@tlcolson: It's a beautiful Tremont night. Wine flows, love glows. If only the stars would shine. But we are #happyincle

@amci05: Phnom Penh in #OhioCity was amazing! Best Cambodian and Vietnamese food! Best kept secret #yum #happyinCLE

@timingle: So many choices of great pastries in Little Italy! #HappyInCLE

@ChrisAnn9: I hope the line @MeltBarGrilled doesn't exceed 2 hours, because I've been fasting alllll day getting ready for this. #happyincle

Health Insurance Coverage
12th

Not only do we have world-renowned health care, most of us can actually use it. Almost 90 percent of us (88.5 percent) have health insurance, far above under-covered spots such as Miami and Houston, at the bottom at 75 percent. The Kids Are Alright: Only 4.5 percent of Greater Cleveland kids are uninsured, compared to 17.8 percent in Las Vegas.