We're Number One!

The 2009 Gallup Poll findings on "Well Being" were released Tuesday and while most of the attention has been on Metropolitan areas, results were also tabulated and released by Congressional Districts.

For the second year in a row our district - California's 14th - scored highest among the nation's 435 districts. The 17th Congressional District which includes most of the rest of Santa Cruz County, ranked 82nd.

The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index score measures 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 17th District ranked highest in the nation in "healthy behaviour"

According to the news release from Gallup:

Among the nation's 52 largest metropolitan areas that Gallup surveyed in 2009, San Jose, Calif., had the highest well-being in the nation followed closely by Washington, D.C., according to the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index. Rounding out the top five well-being cities are Raleigh, N.C., Minneapolis, and San Francisco.

The so called San Jose/Sunnyvale/Santa Clara metro area had a "Well-Being Index Composite Score" of 69.2. The SF/Oakland/Fremont area scored 68.1 placing if fifth among the nation's 52 largest metro areas surveyed.

Among medium and smaller metro areas the Santa Cruz/Watsonville area had a score of 68.6 which placed it at number 13 among similar sized areas.

For the full report, including methodology:
Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index - Findings