Hawaii has emerged as the undisputed winner of the title of the happiest state with two recent polls awarding the Aloha state with the top spot on their respective lists.
The state topped the Gallup-Healthways 2016 State Well-Being Rankings, released Wednesday, as well as America’s Health Rankings Annual Report for the sixth and fifth time, respectively. Alaska, which was also the runner-up in the Gallup-Healthways rankings for 2015, came in on the second spot, followed by South Dakota, Maine and Colorado.
“Hawaii has had a heck of a run,” Dan Witters, research director of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, told Today. “They do a lot of things right there. They take good care of themselves. They do the blocking and tackling of physical wellness really well.”
The state with the lowest well-being scores was West Virginia, which along with Kentucky, Oklahoma, Indiana and Arkansas rounded off the bottom five. Kentucky and West Virginia have been at the last two spots for eight years in a row, according to Gallup-Healthways.
The Gallup-Healthways conducts interviews with over 177,000 U.S. adults across the 50 states between January and December of a particular year. On the basis of these interactions, each state is given a well-being score depending on how the participants answered questions about their sense of purpose, social relationships, financial situations, involvement in the community and physical health.
The full list of states ranked by their well-being score out of 100 can be seen below:
1. Hawaii 65.2
2. Alaska 64.0
3. South Dakota 63.7
4. Maine 63.6
5. Colorado 63.5
6. Vermont 63.5
7. Arizona 63.4
8. Montana 63.2
9. Minnesota 63.2
10. Texas 63.1
11. Florida 63.1
12. Wyoming 63.0
13. California 63.0
14. Massachusetts 63.0
15. Nebraska 62.9
16. North Dakota 62.8
17. Utah 62.8
18. Idaho 62.7
19. Iowa 62.6
20. New Mexico 62.6
21. Virginia 62.6
22. New Hampshire 62.6
23. Washington 62.5
24. Oregon 62.5
25. New Jersey 62.5
26. North Carolina 62.4
27. South Carolina 62.3
28. Wisconsin 62.3
29. Georgia 62.3
30. Pennsylvania 62.1
31. Maryland 62.0
32. Kansas 61.8
33. New York 61.8
34. Nevada 61.8
35. Connecticut 61.7
36. Missouri 61.7
37. Illinois 61.6
38. Tennessee 61.5
39. Michigan 61.4
40. Delaware 61.4
41. Mississippi 61.3
42. Rhode Island 61.3
43. Louisiana 61.0
44. Alabama 61.0
45. Ohio 60.9
46. Arkansas 60.8
47. Indiana 60.5
48. Oklahoma 60.5
49. Kentucky 60.5
50. West Virginia 58.9
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