Portfolio.com and bizjournals set out to measure the levels of personal stress within America’s major metropolitan areas. Here are the details:

Goal: The study’s objective was to identify markets that subject their residents to unusually high or low amounts of stress. Markets were evaluated for factors that have a direct impact on stress levels, including unemployment, finances, health, weather, pollution, crime, and traffic.

Markets: The study covered the nation’s 50 largest metropolitan areas, based on 2009 population estimates by the U.S. Census Bureau. The markets ranged from New York City, with 19.07 million residents, to Buffalo, with 1.12 million.

Source: The raw statistics used in the study were collected by several government agencies and private firms, as listed below. Most rates and percentages, and all rankings, were calculated by Portfolio.com and bizjournals.

Factors: Portfolio.com and bizjournals used a 10-part formula to determine each market’s stress level. The 10 factors are described below. Each is followed by three items in parentheses: (1) the geographical area involved, whether it is the entire metropolitan area, the metro’s central city, or its central county, (2) the period when statistics were collected, and (3) the source for the raw data used by the study.

1. Unemployment rate (metro area, June 2010, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics).
2. Rate of per capita income growth, reflecting the average amount of money received by each resident, encompassing such diverse sources as salaries, interest payments, dividends, rental income, and government checks (metro area, 2008-09, U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis).
3. Families living below the federally designated poverty level, which varies according to family size and composition (metro area, 2008, U.S. Census Bureau).
4. Deaths from circulatory-system diseases per 100,000 residents, covering such maladies as heart failure, hypertension, and stroke (central county, 2006, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).
5. Percentage of possible sunshine received during an average year (central city, long-term annual average as of 2010, National Climatic Data Center and Weatherbase).
6. Ozone level, expressed as the year’s fourth-highest reading in parts per million (central county, 2008, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency).
7. Robberies per 100,000 residents (central city, 2009, Federal Bureau of Investigation).
8. Murders per 100,000 residents (central city, 2009, Federal Bureau of Investigation).
9. Average commuting time from home to workplace, regardless of the means of transportation (metro area, 2008, U.S. Census Bureau).
10. Mortgage affordability, expressed as median house value per $1,000 of median household income (metro area, 2008, U.S. Census Bureau).

Scoring: Each market was compared against the study group’s average scores in all 10 categories. Instances of higher-than-normal stress received positive scores, while cases of lower-than-normal stress were given negative scores. (Higher statistics equaled higher stress in all but two categories. Lower statistics equaled higher stress in categories 2 and 5 above.) Category scores were combined to determine each market’s overall rank. Final scores ranged from 9.026 points for Detroit, the most stressful metro, to negative-7.949 points for Salt Lake City, the area with the least stress.

To download a PDF that shows how the nation's 50 largest metropolitan areas rank according to our stress test, click here.