<p>From gun violence to busy roads to access to emergency care, many factors can shape the safety of a community, which in turn helps determine the health of a community.</p><p>In assessing dozens of factors that shape and show the health of nearly 3,000 counties and county equivalents across the country, the 2024 Healthiest Communities rankings explore this relationship. In the public safety category of the rankings, communities are scored on a 100-point scale tied to their performance relative to one another across seven metrics in three key areas: crime, injuries and public safety capacity. Individual metrics include violent and property crime rates, the share of the population in proximity to emergency facilities, spending on health and emergency services, vehicle crash fatality rate and more.</p>