Hawaii ranked happiest place in United States
Baku, February 28 (AZERTAC). The Aloha State Monday was ranked the happiest place in America in a Gallup survey that tracks several factors to determine the nation’s Well-Being Index. The state scored 70.2 out of 100, besting North Dakota’s 70.
Hawaii, holding the title of happiest place in America for the third year in a row, had top scores for healthy habits and emotional health.
"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," according to Gallup.
West Virginia took the dubious honour of having the unhappiest residents with an index score of 62.3 - an uptick from its 2010 ranking. West Virginia residents had the worst physical health and life evaluation.
Gallup said Hawaiians’ level of happiness is similarly felt in the Midwest and Western states, like Minnesota, Iowa, Montana and Utah. Meanwhile, the South continues to rank low on Gallup’s happiness scale.
As a whole, America in 2011 was pretty much at the same level of happiness as 2010 -- ranking 66.2 last year -- but a sharp decline since 2008, the year Gallup started tracking happiness and the beginning of the economic collapse.
The 2011 telephone survey was carried out between Jan. 2 and Dec. 29, 2011 and included a random sample of 353,492 adults, ages 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. To understand state well-being, Gallup relied on six measures: life evaluation (self-evaluation about your present life situation and anticipated one in five years); emotional health; work environment (such as job satisfaction); physical health; healthy behavior; and basic access (access to health care, a doctor, a safe place to exercise and walk, and community satisfaction).
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