Probably no real surprises. :lol:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/10-most-unhappy-states-in-the-us-2013-03-20?link=sfmw&mod=e2tw
QuoteAccording to a recent Gallup poll, the U.S. has shown almost no improvement in well-being in the past five years, with just a slight increase from 2011 when Americans reported the most miserable scores since the survey began. The top and bottom states have remained nearly the same. The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, which has surveyed 1.7 million Americans since the survey was first conducted in 2008, reflects the physical and emotional health of residents in each of the 50 states. 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the scores of each state in the six categories that comprise Gallup's index to identify objective measures that impact well-being. Some of the factors include health, life expectancy, income and education level.
Though odd perhaps that unhappy = unhealthy here.
It seems not everybody is as happy about living in Kentucky as Cal is :(
I am kind of surprised the sunny warm states are generally unhappier than the cold dark states.
It's all about healthiness, not happiness.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 21, 2013, 11:14:27 AM
It's all about healthiness, not happiness.
Actually I did a little more digging on gallup's site:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/123215/Gallup-Healthways-Index.aspx
QuoteThe Well-Being Index score is an average of six sub-indexes, which individually examine life evaluation , emotional health , work environment , physical health , healthy behaviors , and access to basic necessities . The Index is calculated on a scale of 0 to 100, where a score of 100 would represent ideal wellbeing.
So though that article presented it that way, there are components of happiness in there like "life evaluation" and "emotional health".
Yi's point still stands. None of that stuff necessarily correlates to happiness.
It seems like Bible Belt is where civilization in US goes to die. Pretty much any index you can think of, Bible Belt will bring up the rear.
Quote from: derspiess on March 21, 2013, 11:28:43 AM
Yi's point still stands. None of that stuff necessarily correlates to happiness.
Emotional health doesn't correlate to happiness? :huh:
Quote from: fahdiz on March 21, 2013, 11:31:25 AM
Quote from: derspiess on March 21, 2013, 11:28:43 AM
Yi's point still stands. None of that stuff necessarily correlates to happiness.
Emotional health doesn't correlate to happiness? :huh:
Depends on how it's evaluated. Anyway most of what's mentioned in the "article" is stuff like obesity rates, smoking, economic stuff, etc.
Seems like they could have just polled people & asked them to rate their happiness on a 10-point scale, rather than compile a bunch of irrelevant or at best semi-relevant data and decide who's happy & who's not.
Quote from: derspiess on March 21, 2013, 11:37:59 AM
Seems like they could have just polled people & asked them to rate their happiness on a 10-point scale, rather than compile a bunch of irrelevant or at best semi-relevant data and decide who's happy & who's not.
Happiness isn't quantifiable, whereas a lot of that other data is.
You also have a lot of people who report as happy who are not.
Quote from: derspiess on March 21, 2013, 11:37:59 AM
Seems like they could have just polled people & asked them to rate their happiness on a 10-point scale, rather than compile a bunch of irrelevant or at best semi-relevant data and decide who's happy & who's not.
Surely they did do that. The 'life evaluation' and 'emotional health' stuff had to be simply a bunch of questions like that.
And I find it sorta funny to consider that professional data collectors are unable to calculate simple correlations, but in today's media I guess anything is possible.
Quote from: fahdiz on March 21, 2013, 11:31:25 AM
Quote from: derspiess on March 21, 2013, 11:28:43 AM
Yi's point still stands. None of that stuff necessarily correlates to happiness.
Emotional health doesn't correlate to happiness? :huh:
Not sure why it should. One can be free of a mental illness and be very unhappy. Also, one can have a mental illness (with the exception of the depressive illnesses) and be quite content.
Quote from: Valmy on March 21, 2013, 11:41:34 AM
And I find it sorta funny to consider that professional data collectors are unable to calculate simple correlations, but in today's media I guess anything is possible.
They could theoretically find correlations between health and happiness, but to do so they would first need to find measures of happiness. If they could measures of happiness, they could just report them directly.
Quote from: crazy canuck on March 21, 2013, 11:44:16 AM
Not sure why it should. One can be free of a mental illness and be very unhappy. Also, one can have a mental illness (with the exception of the depressive illnesses) and be quite content.
Excellent point, but when correlated with all the other factors mentioned I would imagine there's a high probability that high-scoring people on these indexes are indeed "happy".
Well, this was an interesting little read, if nothing else:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happiness_economics
Send unhappy people to re-education camps.
Here's apparently what they look at for life eval and emotional health.
QuoteThe Life Evaluation Index, one of six sub-components of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being 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, where "0" represents the worst possible life an "10" represents the best possible life. Taken together, respondents are then classified as "thriving," "struggling," or "suffering," with "thriving" respondents evaluating their current state as a "7" or higher and their future state as a "8" or higher, while "suffering" respondents provide a "4" or lower to both evaluations.
QuoteThe Emotional Health Index, one of six sub-components of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being 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.
Actually here are the rest too.
QuoteThe Physical Health Index, one of six sub-components of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, includes 18 items, which measure: 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.
QuoteThe Work Environment Index, one of six sub-components of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, includes four items: job satisfaction, ability to use one's strengths at work, supervisor's treatment (more like a boss or a partner), and is it an open and trusting work environment.
QuoteThe Healthy Behavior Index, one of six sub-components of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, includes four items: smoking, eating healthy, weekly consumption of fruits and vegetables, and weekly exercise frequency.
QuoteThe Basic Access Index, one of six sub-components of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being 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.
Apart from health behavior index, I think all of those sub-indexes have at least some measures that look at proxies for happiness.
Seems there is more to Kentucky failing to make it to the NCAA tourney and losing in the first round of the NIT than just recruiting philosophy. :hmm:
Quote from: Valmy on March 21, 2013, 11:10:34 AM
It seems not everybody is as happy about living in Kentucky as Cal is :(
I am kind of surprised the sunny warm states are generally unhappier than the cold dark states.
I've said this over and over again, but I guess I need to say it yet one more time: a huge swath of Kentucky is in the worst part of Appalachia, which sadly has a lot in common with the Third World. I do not live in that part of the state however.
Don't bother Cal.
That selection of states seems to be based on income more than anything else.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on March 21, 2013, 01:23:35 PM
That selection of states seems to be based on income more than anything else.
Probably not surprising if that correlates with various factors in what those sub-indexes look for.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on March 21, 2013, 01:23:35 PM
That selection of states seems to be based on income more than anything else.
Maslow's hierarchy of needs provides a correlation there.
Null vote, Bhutan. :P
Quote from: Caliga on March 21, 2013, 01:19:15 PM
I've said this over and over again, but I guess I need to say it yet one more time: a huge swath of Kentucky is in the worst part of Appalachia, which sadly has a lot in common with the Third World. I do not live in that part of the state however.
Oh for Godsake Cal I was just busting your chops.
Yeah, I figured, but there are a lot of ignorant people around here who don't know any better.... kind of how like if I pointed to some broke-ass Indian fishing village in the middle of nowhere B.C. and speculated everyone in the province must live that way, even the dudes in Vancouver. :)
Quote from: Caliga on March 21, 2013, 04:47:49 PM
Yeah, I figured, but there are a lot of ignorant people around here who don't know any better.... kind of how like if I pointed to some broke-ass Indian fishing village in the middle of nowhere B.C. and speculated everyone in the province must live that way, even the dudes in Vancouver. :)
More likely it is people meh it is Kentuck. No point wasting brain cells on what are the "good" parts and the "bad" parts. :P
For someone that lives here, I would argue that there is indeed a point. :sleep:
I like Kentucky. :)
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 21, 2013, 04:51:31 PM
I like Kentucky. :)
:cool:
I am curious if all the people around here who enjoy shitting on Kentucky have ever been here. :)
Quote from: Caliga on March 21, 2013, 04:52:27 PM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 21, 2013, 04:51:31 PM
I like Kentucky. :)
:cool:
I am curious if all the people around here who enjoy shitting on Kentucky have ever been here. :)
Of course not. Why would I go to Kentucky when there are still plenty of places that are generally held to be likeable that I haven't been to?
I am Cal's feudal lord with my Kentucky colonelcy.
Quote from: mongers on March 21, 2013, 01:45:23 PM
Null vote, Bhutan. :P
Ah yes...that most distant of US states.
I believe I am in one of the unhappiest states at the moment.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on March 22, 2013, 01:41:04 PM
I believe I am in one of the unhappiest states at the moment.
Darling, you ain't that big. :hug:
DONT YOU PATRONIZE ME
Quote from: fahdiz on March 22, 2013, 01:34:10 PM
Quote from: mongers on March 21, 2013, 01:45:23 PM
Null vote, Bhutan. :P
Ah yes...that most distant of US states.
Bhutan is more a state of mind, than a place. :cool:
Please don't tell that to the Chinese. :ph34r:
Beleaguered? Not Teachers, a Poll on 'Well-Being' Finds
"A new analysis of polling data from the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index that examines "well-being" as measured by a number of indicators, including physical and emotional health, job satisfaction and feelings of community and safety, found that teachers ranked second only to physicians.
In addition, teachers ranked above all other professions in answers to questions about whether they "smiled or laughed yesterday," as well as whether they experienced happiness and enjoyment the day before the survey."
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/28/education/in-poll-on-well-being-teachers-rank-high.html
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fcdn.memegenerator.net%2Finstances%2F250x250%2F33807566.jpg&hash=8d6ef4d04e806ec27574aa4dd114ae722bb33493)
Quote from: fahdiz on March 21, 2013, 01:32:49 PM
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on March 21, 2013, 01:23:35 PM
That selection of states seems to be based on income more than anything else.
Maslow's hierarchy of needs provides a correlation there.
You and your damned hierarchy. Why must everything be a competition with you?
Quote from: derspiess on March 21, 2013, 11:28:43 AM
Yi's point still stands. None of that stuff necessarily correlates to happiness.
The UK office of statistics are trying to measure happiness, or 'measure of subjective well-being'.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/nov/20/happiness-index-anxiety-satisfaction-uk
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-18966729
I'm not convinced of the need but it is an idea to try and measure a subjective feeling in the census.