West Virginia residents have ranked the lowest in overall well-being for the seventh straight year, according to an annual Gallup poll released Thursday.
West Virginia and two of its neighbors, Ohio and Kentucky, ranked in the bottom five states in terms of emotional and physical well-being, according to the poll, which measured well-being using five "essential" elements - purpose, or "liking what you do each day and being motivated to achieve your goals," social well-being, financial stability, community safety and pride, and physical health. The data is based on more than 177,000 interviews with adults in all 50 states conducted throughout 2015.
The Well-Being Index is calculated using a scale of 0 to 100, with 0 representing the lowest possible well-being and 100 being the best. According to Gallup, a difference of 0.5 and 1.0 is considered statistically significant - four out of the bottom five states had scores within 0.2 points of each other, while West Virginia's score of 58.5 was a full 1.8 points below the next lowest state of Kentucky. Hawaii has the highest well-bring score, with 64.8 points. The U.S. average for 2015 was 61.7 points.
West Virginians reported the lowest well-being in four out of the five categories, with the exception of financial wellness, which was lowest in Mississippi.