The well-being of Americans hasn't improved in the past six years, and it even declined slightly in 2013, according to a recent Gallup study. But while national figures remained flat overall, the ranks of the states with the highest well-being scores changed considerably. Hawaii, 2012's top state, fell to number eight in 2013, and the new top-ranked state didn't crack the Top 10 a year ago.
The state at the bottom of the list, though, has been the nation's most miserable for five straight years.
The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, compiled from interviews with more than 176,000 people from all 50 states, measures the physical and emotional health of Americans across the country.
The index effectively measures health, employment, education and the local environment, Dan Witters, research director of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, told 24/7 Wall St. The results show that a strong economy and a healthy, educated workforce can improve well-being, even as a high well-being mark influences further positive developments within a state.
The Gallup-Healthways survey asked respondents a large range of questions, and several key indicators emerged.
In states with high well-being scores, residents were less likely to smoke and more likely to say they exercise regularly and learn new things every day. These states enjoyed the positive outcomes of such behaviors, including lower obesity rates and other common health problems.
In states with low well-being marks, residents were more likely to have unhealthy lifestyles or limited access to basic necessities. As a result, they tended to feel physically and emotionally unhealthy. In those states, residents were among the most likely in the nation to suffer from health problems such as high cholesterol and blood pressure, as well as obesity.
States with the lowest well-being scores typically had very low median household incomes. Stable incomes are important because they enable people to access basic needs such as healthy food, clean water, medicine and health care.
But the opposite was not the case; some high-ranking states were not especially well-off. "For the most part, well-being goes up with income," according to Witters. But "emotional health scores kind of hit their peak at about $75,000 a year. And after that point, they really don't get any better."
Regional patterns were also evident, as states in some parts of the country continued to do better than others in 2013. In particular, the Plains states were disproportionately well-represented among the states with high well-being ranks. States in the Southeast accounted for seven of the 10 states with the lowest scores.
24/7 Wall St. reviewed all 50 U.S. states based on their scores in the Gallup-Healthways 2013 Well-Being Index. Each state gets a score from 0 to 100, with 100 representing ideal well-being. In generating the rank, Gallup combined six separate indices, measuring access to basic needs; healthy behavior; work environment; physical health; life evaluation and optimism; and emotional health.
In addition to the index, 24/7 Wall St. considered data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the Bureau of Labor Statistics and other sources for this report.
Click on for a look at America’s most miserable and most contents states, then read the full report at 24/7 Wall St.
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