Southfield (WWJ)  -- The Detroit-Livonia-Warren area is third least friendly when it comes to women and heart disease.   The American Heart Association's report released Monday shows Minneapolis-St. Paul as the most heart friendly city for women because of its low cardiac mortality rate for women, low hypertension rates and highest exercise rates. 

Nashville finished at the bottom of the rankings with high obesity and smoking rates.  Second least friendliest was St. Louis, followed by the Detroit area.  

Click here for more details on the report. 

Dr. Mary Ann Bauman, American Heart Association national spokesperson, said the goal is that individual residents,
communities at large and government officials can use this information to help create socio-political change at the grassroots level as well as educate women on their personal risk for heart disease.

The study focused on the 200 largest metro areas in the United States, which are home to nearly 75% of the nation's population. The research analyzed 22 factors for each location including smoking, obesity, cardiac mortality rate and regular exercise amongst women.

Some findings from the report:

--  Minneapolis-St. Paul, Boston and Phoenix reported the lowest female cardiac mortality rates in the country; Detroit, Nashville and St. Louis reported the highest.

--  San Francisco, Denver and Los Angeles were the thinnest mega metros; Cleveland, San Antonio and Columbus were among the most overweight.

--  Our nation's capital, Washington, D.C., reported the lowest stress ratings of all the mega metros while Portland, OR reported the highest stress levels in the category.

--  Generally, California and Colorado cities scored well in the Heart Friendly Cities study; the metros that scored the lowest in the study were found in the South and Midwest.

Heart health statistics include:

--  One in three adult women has one or more forms of cardiovascular disease.

--  Cardiovascular disease kills approximately 460,000 women per year, approximately one woman per minute.

--  More women die of cardiovascular disease than the next five causes of death combined, including cancer.