After making slight gains over the past two years in the annual State of American Well-Being rankings by Gallup-Healthways, Louisiana slipped two spots on this year’s ranking to No. 42.
The new rankings, released today, evaluate each state on five well-being categories: purpose, social support, financial security, community pride and physical activity. Each state is assigned an overall score based on the categories. The U.S. average index score is 61.7; Louisiana’s is 61.1. Hawaii, which took over the top spot in this year’s ranking from Alaska, has an index score of 64.8, while No. 50 West Virginia has a 58.5 index score.
“There are many positive national well-being trends including an uptick in financial well-being, a decline in the uninsured rate, a decline in smoking to its lowest rate since our measurement began in 2008, an increase in reported exercise, and declines in both food and healthcare insecurity,” reads the Gallup-Healthways report. “Life evaluation—how Americans rate and perceive their lives—also reached its highest levels yet.”
Of the five categories, Louisiana once again scored highest in the purpose category, which measures residents’ feelings on how much they like what they do each day and are motivated to achieve their goals. Louisiana’s ranking in the category is No. 12, down from No. 9 a year ago.
Louisiana saw the greatest category ranking improvement—up nine spots to No. 22 this year—in social, which gauges supportive relationships. The state’s financial ranking slipped two spots to No. 48, while the community ranking fell eight spots to No. 42 and the physical activity ranking improved four spots to No. 39.
At No. 42 overall, Louisiana is now back where it was when the State of American Well-Being Rankings were first issued in 2008. Since then, last year’s No. 40 ranking was the highest the state has ever achieved since attaining a No. 36 ranking in 2011. The rankings are based on interviews with 177,281 Americans in all 50 states.
See the complete State of American Well-Being report.
—Steve Sanoski
