A New Report Has Revealed That You're Most Likely To Catch A Cold In These 10 Cities

Do you feel like you’re always coming down with a cold, flu or some other winter virus? There may be a reason for that ― and it could come down to where you live in the United States, according to new data published by the Leighton School of Nursing at Marian University in Indiana.

In the report, researchers looked at 15 factors that can impact virus transmission and concluded that certain characteristics of some locations could be linked with a greater chance of getting sick.

The factors include high population density, where virus spread can be blamed partly on crowding; poor air quality, which can impact respiratory health; a large population of children under 14 (children are known to more easily spread viruses); certain weather patterns that could make viruses more transmissible; low flu vaccination rates; and difficulty accessing nutritious food, which can harm the immune system.

In the report, each of 100 U.S. cities was given a rating out of 100. The higher the number, the more likely you are to get sick.

Here are the cities, according to the report:

1. Bakersfield, California (71.74)
2. McAllen, Texas (70.85)
3. El Paso, Texas (69.71)
4. Philadelphia (69.18)
5. Las Vegas (64.79)
6. Fresno, California (62.42)
7. Detroit (62.27)
8. Chicago (60.97)
9. Ogden, Utah (60.70)
10. Riverside, California (59.84)

While the factors are certainly known to impact cold transmission and someone’s ability to fight off viruses, the results shouldn’t be taken as direct evidence this will happen. “This ranking draws from a range of data sources and factors, all crunched in the spirit of fun,” the report stated. 

Additionally, medical professionals were not asked to weigh in on the report. So we chatted about the findings with Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of infectious disease at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee.

Schaffner said this data does have merit and tied it back to previous studies and research that have looked at respiratory viruses ― particularly the flu ― and correlated hospitalizations with something called the social vulnerability index, “which is an amalgam of a whole lot of issues, including things such as crowding, which these investigators have looked at,” Schaffner noted.

Research shows that neighborhoods that have more crowding, for instance, experience higher rates of illnesses severe enough for hospitalization, he said.

Beyond crowding, social vulnerability metrics include not having health insurance, living in a household with children under 17 and other factors.

The report by Marian University also weighs factors known as social determinants of health, which “are the conditions in the environments where people are born, live, learn, work, play, worship and age that affect a wide range of health, functioning, and quality-of-life outcomes and risks,” according to the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.

Poor air quality, lack of access to healthy food and exercise — all things this new report also looked at — fall in this category and are known to impact health outcomes. 

There are other factors that can determine whether you get sick.