How “Well-Being” are We?

Have you ever wondered how progressed as a human being you are? The American Human Development Project recently just published the first ever human development research that helps answer exactly the question of just “How are People doing?” in US and the affluent world. Unlike traditional measurements consisting of mostly “economic” factors, the American Human Development Project also weighs in other factors such as “health” and “access to knowledge” to develop their index.

The following are a few factoids directly from the research:

The U.S. infant mortality rate is on par with that of Croatia, Cuba, Estonia, and Poland; if the U.S. infant mortality rate were the same as that of top-ranked Sweden, 21,000 more American babies would live to celebrate their first birthdays every year.

More than half of all personal bankruptcies in the U.S. are related to an inability to pay for illness or injury.

Fourteen percent of the population – some 30 million Americans – lacks the literacy skills to perform simple, everyday tasks like understanding newspaper articles and instruction manuals.

As for something fun, try out their new “WELL-O-METER” to measure how “WELL-being” you are compared to their statistics.

Well O Meter Results