Fresno earned an overall bronze medal in CityHealth’s 2025 Policy Assessment, maintaining its standing among the 51 cities nationally recognized for implementing evidence-based health policies.

The assessment, released Monday by CityHealth — an initiative of the de Beaumont Foundation and Kaiser Permanente — evaluated the nation’s 75 largest cities on 12 policy areas designed to promote community health and equity. Fresno earned individual medals in six of the 12 policy categories.

Other cities earning overall bronze status in California include Anaheim, Irvine, Riverside and Stockton. Other bronze-earning cities include Austin, Texas; Cincinnati, Ohio; Dallas, Houston and Fort Worth, Texas; Detroit, Michigan; and Hernderson, Nevada.

Fresno received silver medals in complete streets and earned sick leave policies. Fresno’s complete streets policy earned recognition for requiring compliance and balancing multiple transportation modes, though it fell short of gold-level criteria around equity measures and community engagement plans, according to the report.

In earned sick leave, Fresno benefits from California state law requiring all employers to provide paid sick time. The policy allows employees to use leave for family care and domestic violence recovery, offering 40 hours minimum annually — eight hours short of the gold standard.

Fresno earned bronze medals in four additional areas: flavored tobacco restrictions, greenspace, high-quality accessible pre-K and safer alcohol sales. The city’s flavored tobacco policy prohibits the sale of at least one category of flavored tobacco products without penalizing youth. Its greenspace recognition came from adopting park access or tree canopy goals with specific measurable targets.

The city did not earn medals in five policy areas: affordable housing trusts, eco-friendly purchasing, healthy food purchasing, healthy rental housing and legal support for renters. Fresno also received no medal for smoke-free indoor air, despite having some smoking restrictions in place.

Nationally, CityHealth awarded 51 cities overall medals this year, with eight earning gold, 26 earning silver and 17 earning bronze. Chicago joined the gold tier for the first time.

According to CityHealth, approximately 47.6 million Americans now live in cities that have earned overall medals — an increase of nearly 4 million from 2024.

The assessment was conducted in partnership with the Center for Public Health Law Research at Temple University’s Beasley School of Law. Cities earn individual medals when their policies meet established criteria across categories including housing, transportation, health care access and environmental health.