SALT LAKE CITY – A recent nationwide study has cited Utah as the nation’s second best state for senior citizen living.
That research, conducted by experts from the senior-care platform Mirador Living, identified Utah as among the American states where elderly citizen feel most connected to life, trailing only neighboring Idaho.
“Utah’s success in keeping seniors from feeling isolated isn’t accidental,” according to Dharam Khalsa, the CEO and co-founder of Mirador Living.
“The state has the second-lowest rate of unmarried or divorced seniors in America and third-lowest rate of seniors living alone. This reflects a cultural emphasis on multi-generational family structures that provide build-in support systems for older adults.”
The study was analyzed data from the U.S. Census Bureau, American’s Health Rankings and the U.S. Household Purse Survey to determine how factors like poverty levels, living arrangements, marital status, independent living difficulties, internet access and self-reports of loneliness impact adults aged 65 or older across Utah and all other U.S. states.
That data revealed that Utah’s strong family-oriented culture translates directly into measurable positive outcome for senior well-being.
Senior citizens aged 65 or older represent about 12.4 percent of Utah’s population, or more than 400,000 people.
Of that number, the Mirador Living analysts found that only 30 percent of those seniors self-reported feeling lonely sometimes or more often; about 22 percent live alone; 36 percent are unmarried, divorced, separated or widowed; about 10.5 percent report difficulties living independently; and only 8 percent live below the poverty level.
Remarkably, those researchers also found that nearly 90 percent of Utah seniors have internet access, the highest rate of any state nationally.
Those figures translate to an Older Adult Isolation Score for Utah of less than 20 percent.
“Combined with strong internet connectivity and the lowest poverty rates among top performing states,” Khalsa emphasized, “Utah has created an environment where seniors can maintain both family connections and digital access to the wider world.”
Only neighboring Idaho topped Utah’s score with less than 15 percent of its seniors feeling isolated.
In addition to Idaho and Utah, the other states rounding out the top ten in terms of senior connectivity included Delaware, Vermont, Montana, New Hampshire, Colorado, Maine, Arizona and Hawaii.
Additional details about the Mirador Living study can be found at https://www.miradorliving.com/resources/health/study-reveals-top-us-states-seniors-most-isolated
Based in northern California, Mirador Living launched its groundbreaking platform designed to assist aging seniors and their families in finding the right senior living option in 2024.