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02/16/2010: "Holland, Michigan Ranked Second in Overall Well-being"
Holland, Michigan was ranked the second best city in overall well-being on the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index . Boulder, Colorado ranked first and Honolulu, Hawaii was third.
The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index surveyed over 353,000 Americans age 18 or older in 2009. The survey was completed by randomly polling 1,000 Americans per day, in 162 large and medium-size cities. The results for overall well-being, life evaluation, emotional health, physical health, healthy behavior, work environment, and basic access based on Gallup-Healthways data from 2009.
Six sub-components of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index:
Life Evaluation Index includes a self-evaluation of two items present life situation and anticipated life situation five years from now, using the Cantril Self-Anchoring Striving Scale with steps from 0 to 10.
Emotional Health Index includes 10 items: smiling or laughter, learning or doing something interesting, being treated with respect, enjoyment, happiness, worry, sadness, anger, stress, and diagnosis of depression.
Work Environment Index includes four items: job satisfaction, ability to use one's strengths at work, supervisor's treatment, and is it an open and trusting work environment.
Physical Health Index includes nine items: sick days in the past month, disease burden, health problems that get in the way of normal activities, obesity, feeling well-rested, daily energy, daily colds, daily flu, and daily headaches.
Healthy Behavior Index includes four items: smoking, eating healthy, weekly consumption of fruits and vegetables, and weekly exercise frequency.
Basic Access Index includes 13 items: access to clean water, medicine, a safe place to exercise, affordable fruits and vegetables; enough money for food, shelter, healthcare; having health insurance, having a doctor, having visited a dentist recently; satisfaction with the community, the community getting better as a place to live, and feeling safe walking alone at night.
Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index City Rankings
Top 10 Cities Overall, Well-Being
Rank City WBI Score
1 Boulder, Colo. 72.5
2 Holland, Mich. 71.0
3 Honolulu, Hawaii 70.8
4 Provo, Utah 70.6
5 Santa Rosa, Calif. 69.4
6 Santa Barbara, Calif. 69.3
7 San Jose, Calif. 69.2
8 Washington, D.C. 69.1
9 Ogden, Utah 69.1
10 Oxnard, Calif. 69.0
To view the full lists and view other graphs on the nations well-being visit Gallup.com.
For more information on this topic there is a good article in USA Today.
