Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Happiest Places in the US

Yahoo! News featured a pretty interesting article on their front page today. Gallup-Healthways created a study that determined areas within the US where people are happiest. This findings were caluculated from people's overall mental, physical, and ecominic health. It also examines diet, exercise, work, and other basic necessities. These variables would then determine areas in the US where Americans' well being was strongest and weakest.

Here is what they found:

The top three states where Americans' well-being is the highest is in this order: Utah, Hawaii, and Wyoming.

The bottom three states where Americans' well-being is the lowest is in this order: Mississippi, Kentucky, and West Virginia (lowest).

"In general, highest well-being scores came from states in the West while the lowest were concentrated in the South."

"The happiest congressional districts were some of the wealthiest, while the lowest scores came in some of the poorest."

The average scores between states wasn't that significant: Utah scored 69.2 while Wesy Virginia scored 61.2.

San Francisco, Georgia Rep, and Atlanta were in the top 10 areas of well-being and in the top 10 median for household income.

If you want to find out more, check out the article here or go to the website of the creators of this study here to check out their well-being index.

So what do you make of this study? I wonder if sunlight intake and weather differences have anything to do with it...

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