How "Well" is New Jersey?
Posted February 19, 2010

This past week saw the release of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index 2009, a measurement that rates national and state "well-being" based on six categories: "life evaluation, emotional health, work environment, physical health, healthy behaviors, and access to basic necessities."

Unfortunately, New Jersey ranked in the bottom half of states, coming in 29^th with an overall well-being score of 65.6. (Click here for the study's methodology.)

The breakdown of score and ranking for each category was:

• Life Evaluation           45.9 – 21^st
• Emotional Health        77.7 – 40^th
• Physical Health           77.8 – 9^th
• Healthy Behavior        63.5 – 21^st
• Work Environment     44.4 – 48^th
• Basic Access               84.3 – 10^th

What do these findings tell us?

Several things.

First, in some areas, our state is doing very well! Basic access to things such as "food, shelter, healthcare, and a safe and satisfying place to live" received a high score, as did physical health, which includes factors such as "estimates of body mass index, disease burden, sick days, physical pain, daily energy, history of disease, [and] daily health experiences."

Unfortunately, our rankings were only mediocre in life evaluation and healthy behavior, which respectively encompass factors including "evaluation of present life situation [and] anticipated life situation five years from now" and smoking, eating healthfully, fruit and vegetable consumption, and exercise.

Disturbingly, we came in extremely low in emotional health, which includes "smiling or laughter, being treated with respect, enjoyment, happiness, worry, sadness, anger, stress, [and] learning or doing something interesting." And we were nearly dead last in work environment, which asks several questions:

• Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with your job or the work you do?
• At work, do you get to use your strengths to do what you do best every day, or not?
• Does your supervisor at work treat you more like he or she is your boss or your partner?
• Does your supervisor always create an environment that is trusting and open, or not?

While the survey seems remiss in not including questions directly related to family life, each of the areas examined can, indeed, affect family life.  Dissatisfaction at work can translate into stress at home. Poor emotional health can drain relationships. And overall life evaluation can color the home environments we create for our children and families.

While legislative policies coming from Trenton can certainly impact areas such as access to basic necessities and even, to some extent, work environments, more is needed to address the intangible, emotional health of our state and its citizens.

While we at the NJFPC aggressively advocate pro-family legislation, we also focus heavily on family well being sans government programs. From tools to help you build a better marriage and be a better dad to parenting resources and youth health and leadership programs, we aim to make a difference not simply from the outside in, but, more importantly, from the inside out.

Visit our website at www.njfpc.org or call us at 1-800-653-7204 to learn more about how we're building New Jersey into one of the best places to raise a family.

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