If you got up this morning in Provo, Utah, or Boulder, Colo., feeling a strong sense of well-being — it may not just be you. You live in one of the two top population centers for well-being, according to Gallup.
But if you lay your head to rest each night in the West Virginia burgs of Huntington or Charleston and you just couldn't see to get out of bed because you had the blues — don't become overly concerned. Your entire town self-reports as one of the two lowest in the nation for that elusive sense of well-being.
Gallup surveyed folks hither and yon for this survey, and cranked out a long list rated by the Well-Being Index score. Provo-Orem logged the top score at 71.4, while Huntington had the lowest, 59.5.
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The top 10 are as follows:
- Provo-Orem: 71.4
- Boulder 71.3
- Fort Collins-Loveland, Colo.: 71.1
- Honolulu, Hawaii: 70.7
- San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, Calif.: 70.6
- Ann Arbor, Mich.: 70.4
- Naples-Marco Island, Fla.: 70.4
- San Luis Obispo-Paso Robles, Calif.: 70.4
- San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, Calif.: 70.2
- Lincoln, Neb.: 70.1
However, Provonians shouldn't get swelled heads. Says Gallup: "Although Provo-Orem has the highest overall well-being score, it does not lead in any of the six domains of well-being that we measured in 2012 and 2013. Residents of Ann Arbor, Mich., rated their current and future lives the best, for the second year in a row, and those of Huntington-Ashland rated theirs the worst."
Ann Arbor led the way in "life evaluation," a Gallup measure of how good folks feel about their present and future.
Honolulu scored No. 1 in emotional health, San Luis Obispo took top honors for "work environment" (who even works there?), Holland-Grand Haven, Mich., for physical health, and Salinas, Calif., for "healthy behaviors."
Most of the low-ranking metro areas were in the South, with the exception of Beaumont, Texas, which is arguably in the South as well, and Redding, Calif.
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Dan Cook
Dan Cook is a journalist and communications consultant based in Portland, OR. During his journalism career he has been a reporter and editor for a variety of media companies, including American Lawyer Media, BusinessWeek, Newhouse Newspapers, Knight-Ridder, Time Inc., and Reuters. He specializes in health care and insurance related coverage for BenefitsPRO.
