Recent results from the 2025 Rhode Island Life Index revealed that Rhode Islanders’ perceptions of quality of life remain similar to last year but have worsened since the inaugural 2019 index. The data was presented by the Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island and the School of Public Health in partnership with community organizations.
Christopher Ausura, director of policy and community investment at the R.I. Executive Office of Health and Human Services and a member of the R.I. Life Index Coalition, wrote in an email to The Herald that the index “gives insights into R.I. communities based on residents’ lived experiences and perceptions.”
The index is a useful tool for evaluating longitudinal trends in perceptions of life, including differences across race, ethnicity, age and location, Deputy Director of Rhode Island Kids Count Stephanie Geller wrote to The Herald.
The 2025 index represented data from around 2,000 R.I. residents, according to Melissa Clark, director of the Survey Research Center at the SPH. The index also reported on trends from the past seven years of data, according to the R.I. Life Index website.
“We conduct a random digit dial survey conducted in English and Spanish each year,” Clark wrote in an email to The Herald. “We ask questions about perceptions about the social factors that affect health and well-being, along with a few questions about lived experiences.”
Data is analyzed to create “percent of the possible” scores, Clark wrote. A POP score of zero represents that respondents believe their community is close to the worst possible conditions of living, and a score of 100 represents the best possible conditions, she explained.
“The POP score for each component represents how close respondents believe their community is to an ideal or healthy community in each area,” Clark wrote.
There was little change since 2024 in the categories of quality of community, children, services for older adults, community life and access to nutritious food, according to a statement provided to The Herald by Richard Salit, director of public relations at the Blue Cross & Blue Shield of R.I. Cost of living also remained consistent to last year as the lowest score in the index.
Perception of healthcare access dropped three points from 2024. This result highlights “what Rhode Islanders were experiencing given that the survey was conducted” following the announcement of a major primary care practice’s closure, according to Clark.
Carrie Bridges, vice president of community health at Brown University Health, said that given what has been seen in the BUH system, she is not surprised by the drop in perception of health care access.
BUH is “aggressively recruiting” more providers, Bridges said, as well as “aggressively trying to improve the conditions under which (BUH) providers work.” These efforts will make it easier for both new and returning patients to get scheduled for appointments, she said.
Affordable housing was another one of the lowest scores of the 2025 index, a rating that has remained relatively constant since 2024 but down 14 points from 2020.
Catherine Taylor, state director of AARP Rhode Island, explained that housing has been a longstanding crisis within the state. “Everyone’s kind of frozen in place in the housing that they have or they don’t have,” she said.
Taylor explained that there are no places for older individuals who “would be really happy to downsize into something smaller, more manageable, more accessible,” to settle into.
2025 was not an “outlier” in its results for cost of living and affordable housing, Clark wrote. She added that while work by organizations such as AARP R.I. has been beneficial, these issues are “large and were not created overnight, so the solutions will also need to be robust and sustainable.”
The Community Provider Network of Rhode Island is working to create solutions for these issues, according to CPNRI Policy and Outreach Manager Grace Duffy.
“Expanding accessible housing is essential not only to address affordability, but also to ensure that individuals with disabilities can live safely and independently in their communities,” she wrote in an email to The Herald.
The 2025 index also noted that Rhode Islanders’ perceptions of their economic situation has been on the decline since 2021.
“Cost of living continues to climb faster than folks’ incomes are climbing,” Bridges said. “We see it with the skyrocketing rental prices and home prices, in part due to limited supply, in part due to just economic contraction.”
“It’s all around making it harder and harder for people to make ends meet that is real, and that causes real strain and stress.” she added.
Compared to 2024, access to nutritious food and food security have increased two points. The Rhode Island Community Food Bank continues to support those in need.
“At the Food Bank, we see clearly an increased need in the amount of food we are distributing each day,” Melissa Cherney, CEO of the R.I. Community Food Bank, wrote in a statement to The Herald.
Duffy explained that this strain on well-being, especially for those with disabilities, can “not only diminish quality of life but can increase reliance on emergency services and institutional care, which are far more costly and less aligned with community inclusion goals.”
The overall R.I. Life Index score remained the same at 57 from 2024 to 2025. Clark explained that this result can be interpreted one of two ways.
“On one hand, for most of the topics, people’s perceptions were not worse in 2025 than in 2024,” she wrote. “On the other hand, the stability of the low findings for many of the topics, and the fact that there were no meaningful improvements, indicate that there are still ongoing challenges and opportunities to improve.”
Data from the R.I. Life Index can guide research and provide insight for policymakers, community groups and health leaders to improve health and quality of life statewide, according to Francesca Beaudoin PhD’17, interim dean of the School of Public Health.
“Seven years of results make clear this year isn’t just a blip,” Beaudoin wrote in an email to The Herald. “It’s part of a longer pattern, suggesting many people feel the conditions that impact daily life haven’t meaningfully changed.”
Alice Xie is a section editor for Science and Research from Los Angeles, California. She studies Applied Mathematics and Biology, and enjoys reading gut wrenching literature in her free time.
