While it may seem like an interesting choice of timing, this week three organizations teamed up to release rankings of the 50 states and the 435 congressional districts based on their residents’ overall well-being. The polling group Gallup, the health company Healthways, and a national association representing health insurance companies called America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) together developed the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index (WBI) to measure America’s relative health, well-being, and prosperity.

Launched in 2008, the WBI uses data from a 42 question survey that measures how Americans are faring physically, emotionally, socially, and economically at any given point in time. To date, pollsters have conducted nearly 450,000 interviews, a rate of about 1,000 surveys per day. The report released today includes an overall composite score for each state and congressional district, as well as sub-index scores in six domains: Life Evaluation, Emotional Health, Physical Health, Healthy Behavior, Work Environment and Basic Access. The survey will be ongoing with annual updates released each year for the next 25 years.

While the nation’s overall score on the WBI has declined precipitously over the past year, some states are still doing rather well. In general, Western states have the highest well-being scores while the lowest scores are mostly in the South. The top 10 states for well-being appear below, with the average score for overall well-being (out of 100) following in parentheses. As of this writing, the national average score on the WBI is 63.8, down from 66.8 a year ago.

The top 10 states for well-being in America are:

1. Utah (69.2/100)
2. Hawaii (68.2)
3. Wyoming (68.0)
4. Colorado (67.3)
5. Minnesota (67.3)
6. Maryland (67.1)
7. Washington (67.1)
8. Massachusetts (67.0)
9. California (67.0)
10. Arizona (66.8)

Share your thoughts on the rankings in the Healia Health Community for Wellness and Lifestyle.

_{Source: Gallup, Healthways, and America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, 2008 State and Congressional Well-Being Reports, 3/09.http://www.ahiphiwire.org/WellBeing/}

_{Photo: Rob Lee, Flickr, Creative Commons}