New Hampshire ranked happiest state in New England

WalletHub released their annual assessment of the “Happiest States”, giving New Hampshire top marks for New England and 11^th overall in the United States.

The study takes into account nearly 30 metrics, classed into three categories: emotional and physical well-being, the workplace, and community and environment. The factors analyzed were chosen based on scholarly reports that indicate they correlate with higher levels of happiness.

The metrics include rates of obesity, life expectancy, participation in sports activities, sleep deprivation, unemployment rates, commute time, divorce rates and volunteerism, among others.

Utah received the top rank in the nation, while West Virginia came in last. New Hampshire scored high for physical well-being, community and environment, but was marked down slightly in the workplace category.

Supporters praised the study for going beyond basic measures such as income and poverty to take a broader look at indicators of personal happiness, such as a healthy, active lifestyle, social connectedness, and a rewarding job.

However, critics noted that emotional state is much more complex and difficult to quantify, and argued that taking correlations from a few studies and projecting them onto scales as large as states is misleading.