Americans' Emotional Health Reaches Four-Year High; Fewer Americans are experiencing daily worry or stress.
Byline: Alyssa Brown
Synopsis: Americans' emotional heath climbed to a four-year high in April. Emotional health has generally been improving since it fell to a three-year low in September.
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Americans' emotional heath improved in April and, by a slight margin, is now higher than it has been in any month since Gallup and Healthways started tracking it in January 2008. Gallup's U.S. Emotional Health Index score was 79.9 last month, slightly above the previous high of 79.8 recorded in March 2008 and May 2010. Americans' emotional health has generally been improving since September, when it dropped to its lowest level in more than three years (78.3).
These findings are based on approximately 30,000 interviews with American adults conducted each month from January 2008 through April 2012 as a part of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index. The Emotional Health Index score is based on based on Americans' self-reports of positive and negative daily emotions, as well as self-reported clinical diagnoses of depression. Specifically, Americans are asked whether they felt or did "a lot of" each of the following the day before the survey: smiling/laughing, learning/doing something interesting, being treated with respect, enjoyment, happiness, worry, sadness, anger, and stress.
While the Emotional Health Index score has stayed in a narrow range between 77.5 and 79.9 over the past 4 - years, it now surpasses the levels Gallup measured before the September 2008 financial crisis. The previous high of 79.8 came in March 2008 and May 2010, and the low of 77.5 came in December 2008.
Americans' emotional health had been improving in 2011, reaching a one-year high in May (79.6), but then steadily sank in the summer and fall, at the same time that economic confidence was low and as Americans became more pessimistic about their personal finances.
More Americans Experiencing Enjoyment, Fewer Reporting Worry and Stress
Americans score better on all 10 of the Emotional Health Index measures in April than they did at the low point in September. The percentage of Americans who did not "worry a lot of the day yesterday" has improved the most. In April, 68.9% of Americans said they did not experience worry a lot of the previous day, up from 66.1% in September. Similarly, the percentage of Americans who said they did not experience stress was 59.9% in April, up from 57.6% in September.
Self-reported "enjoyment" has also increased. The percentage who...
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