Dan Witters is the research director of the
Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index that conducted phone surveys of more than
350,000 Americans last year, asking them questions related to six
categories, including life evaluation, access to basic needs like clean water
and health care, physical and emotional health, job satisfaction and healthy
behaviors.
“Each of those six equally contributes to that overall
well-being index, so you might be doing better on some than others,” Witters
said. “Just because West Virginia’s
last overall doesn’t mean that it’s last across all of them; it just means that
as a function of all six averaged together it did come in last.”
West Virginians’ responses in all
categories except job satisfaction are lower than most, if not all other states. Witters says the study is a good thing, even if it paints an unpleasant
picture of West Virginia.
“When you think about well-being, it is about having all of
these different components of well-being being satiated in a manner that’s very
comprehensive and ultimately improves our quality of life,” said Witters.
Witters says the collective well-being of the nation impacts
our health system and our economy.
The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index receives funding from
America’s Health Insurance Plans, the national association that represents some 1300 health
insurance companies.
Alan Ducatman, MD, heads West Virginia University’s Department of Community Medicine and says a survey like this is helpful in
terms of the comparative data it provides but the results are not surprising.
“These results are in general consistent with what we’ve
known about health and well-being in the US
for a long time,” Ducatman said. “They show Utah
at the top and that’s consistent, and they show West
Virginia around the bottom and that’s consistent. They
generally, although not completely, follow socio-economic trends; that is to say
wealthier states generally do better than less wealthy states.”
Ducatman also points out that states that often do well in
health and well-being studies are also states that have very strong public
education systems.
“If our goal is to do better and it ought to be, we should
be thinking about policies for our state that can help us do better and we
should also be thinking about things that we as individuals can do better,”
said Ducatman.
Ducatman says policies that promote walking and biking for
transportation instead of relying on vehicles as well as policies that dissuade
people from smoking, drinking soda and eating junk food would be a good start.
Always looking for the silver lining, Pamela Johnson doesn’t
think the difference between the state with the lowest Well-Being Index and the
state with the highest is very significant.
“You know, I think there was a 7.3 percent difference
between your happiest state and your least happy state,” Johnson said. “Considering
all of the economic things going on, I thought that was pretty amazing.”
Johnson is head of the Secret Society of Happy People. She lives
in Texas, which ranked 21 out of
50 states in the Well-Being Index.
Johnson started the Secret Society of Happy People 11 years
ago to counteract what she calls the mainstream media’s fixation on the
negative.
“The trick to finding more happiness is literally counting
those happy moments, is literally every time those things that make you smile
or chuckle come up, remembering them and counting them with the same zest and
enthusiasm that we do things that annoy us,” said Johnson.
You may be wondering why the society is secret: it’s because
Johnson says people with good news to share often don’t receive an enthusiastic
response from others. Misery loves company, not the other way around.
An attitude adjustment may very well make some West
Virginians happier, but Dan Witters with Gallup-Healthways
Well-Being Index says some of the issues the index raises illustrate a need for
change at a higher level.
“The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index does represent a
call to action. It equips policy makers
for the first time with really good data to enable them to make smart decisions
about the health and well-being of the citizenry,” said Witters.
The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index started two years ago
and will continue to survey American’s quality of life for another 23 years.