COLUMBIA, MD — Nine Maryland communities ranked among the healthiest in the United States, according to rankings released by U.S. News & World Report on Monday. The rankings, compiled in collaboration with the Aetna Foundation, present a list of the 500 healthiest American communities. In Maryland, Howard County was the only area to crack the top 100, ranking No. 20 overall.

Another set of rankings released March 14 were produced by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute. Those rankings showed wealthier suburban counties as Maryland's healthiest, led by Montgomery County. The remaining top five are rounded out by Howard, Carroll, Calvert and Frederick counties. The bottom five are the city of Baltimore, then Somerset, Caroline, Dorchester and Allegany. Montgomery County didn't make the US News list. U.S. News evaluated 3,000 communities across 10 categories to determine the rankings. In addition to the overall rankings, U.S. News also ranked communities across four groups: urban high-performing, urban up-and-coming, rural high-performing and rural up-and-coming. Georgia communities also ranked in the latter three categories.

"Research has shown that in the United States, your ZIP code is a greater predictor of your life expectancy than your genetic code," Mark T. Bertolini, chairman of the Aetna Foundation and chairman and CEO of Aetna, said in a press release. "In other words, where you live has a significant impact on your overall health." (For more news like this, find your local Patch here. If you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app; download the free Patch Android app here.)

Here are the Maryland communities that ranked among the 500 healthiest in the U.S.: Howard County (20)

Montgomery County, Maryland (93)

Carroll County, Maryland (121)

Harford County, Maryland (185)

Calvert County, Maryland (211)

Frederick County, Maryland (254)

Anne Arundel County, Maryland (268)

Charles County, Maryland (308)

Baltimore County, Maryland (352)

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Howard County (15)

Montgomery County, Maryland (70)

(70) Carroll County, Maryland (91) The top 10 healthiest communities in the U.S. are: Falls Church City, Virginia Douglas County, Colorado Broomfield County, Colorado Los Alamos County, New Mexico Dukes County, Massachusetts Fairfax City, Virginia Hamilton County, Indiana Routt County, Colorado Ouray County, Colorado Loudoun County, Virginia The rankings were compiled by evaluating how communities performed across 80 metrics in 10 categories: population health, equity, education, economy, housing, food and nutrition, environment, public safety, community vitality and infrastructure. U.S. News collaborated with the University of Missouri Center for Applied Research and Engagement Systems (CARES) to collect and analyze data. The data was collected from government and private sources. (Read the full methodology here)