Hawaii bags “Happiest State” award for third year in a row

By Dr. Ananya Mandal, MDFeb 29 2012

After an assessment of health and well-being of Americans in 2011 – known as Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, it was found that among the 50 U.S. states, Hawaii, with a score of 70.2, tops the list with the highest level of well-being. This is the third year in a row that Hawaii has come in first.

Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index score is an indicator of the happiest states, is an average of six sub-indices, including life evaluation, emotional health, physical health, healthy behavior, work environment, and basic access to necessities like clean and safe water, medicine and health insurance coverage, to name a few. The well-being is measured on a scale of 0 to 100, where a score of 100 would represent ideal well-being.

The top ten states were Hawaii (70.2), North Dakota (70.0), Minnesota (69.2), Utah (69.0), Alaska (69.0), Colorado (68.4), Kansas (68.4), Nebraska (68.3), New Hampshire (68.2) and Montana (68.0).

The nation's overall well-being score in 2011 was 66.2, down from 66.8 in 2010. According to Gallup officials, the static well-being across the country, reflects the continuing sluggish economy. As many states continue to face severe fiscal problems, reductions in public services, public-sector layoffs or salary cuts, and decreases in federal aid, improving the country's well-being will be a challenge for leaders, said the report.

At the bottom end, West Virginia scored 62.3 — in last place, but still an improvement from its 2010 well-being index of 61.7. Rounding out the 10 lowest-scoring states: Kentucky, 63.3; Mississippi, 63.4; Delaware, 64.2; Ohio, 64.5; Alabama, 64.6; Arkansas, 64.7; Missouri, 64.8; Florida, 64.9; and Tennessee and Nevada, both at 65.0.

Hawaii’s top scores in emotional health (83.8) and healthy behaviors (68.9) helped it hang onto its No. 1 rank. According to the report, “Hawaiians were the most likely to say they smiled or laughed a lot “yesterday” and the least likely to report daily worry or stress and to have ever been diagnosed with depression. Residents’ good eating and exercise habits and lower smoking rates earned them the distinction of having the best healthy behaviors in the nation.”

West Virginia, meanwhile, came in last in life evaluation (41.1) — the state’s residents were least likely to rate their lives highly enough to be “thriving” — and also had the highest percentage of obese residents, putting it in last place for physical health (69.9).

Another study, this one published in the Dec. 17, 2009 issue of the journal Science, found that a person's self-report about their well-being matches up well with objective measures, which take into account a state's weather, home prices and other factors that are known reasons to frown (or smile).

The team used their data to statistically create a representative American. That way they could take, for example, a 38-year-old woman with a high-school diploma and making medium-wage who is living anywhere and transplant her to another state and get a rough estimate of her happiness level.