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Which U.S. states had the highest well-being in 2011? Results are in from the Gallup-Healthways' Well-Being Index.
For the fourth year in a row, the mid-west has the highest well-being index across all regions in the U.S., but the place to be is Hawaii whose residents had the highest well-being scores in the country. West Virginia turned in the lowest well-being index.
In 2008, The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index was created to officially measure the nation's well-being. Via phone surveys, Gallup interviewers track the well-being of a random sample of approximately 1,000 U.S. residents, 350 days per year. The general Index addresses the following content categories:
The Index was originally inspired by the work of Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman and psychology professor Ed Diener, who have been influential in addressing the question of what well-being actually means in contemporary life. Data from the fields of survey research , health, and behavioral economics also contribute to the composition of the Index.
On a scale of 0 - 100, the overall well-being for the U.S. in 2011 was 66.2 and has remained fairly static since the inception of the Index, a fact which Gallup attributes to the struggling economy.
When reviewing scores for the Emotional Health sub-index specifically, Gallup notes that Hawaiians were the "most likely to say they smiled or laughed a lot 'yesterday,' and the least likely to report worry, stress, or past diagnoses of depression. Although the Gallup website doesn't offer a sandy beach and a warm ocean, it does give you a host of filtering tools for reviewing various aspects of well-being in many metropolitan areas.
