Gallup Insights on TEDMED's Top 20 Great Challenges

Delegates at the annual TEDMED conference -- currently underway in Washington, D.C. -- held a vote on the 20 greatest health and medicine challenges for 2012. Determining this list of 20 is part of TEDMED's Great Challenges Program, a partnership with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to provide America and the world with a "comprehensive view" on the "most complex and persistent health problems."

Now that the list is set, TEDMED will spend the year investigating these 20 great challenges by interviewing experts and leaders on the topics and will broadcast these segments at TEDMED.com. TEDMED will also conduct webinars on the 20 issues.

As TEDMED begins its exploration of these issues, Gallup data and research can provide information about how the United States is doing on some of these key challenges and insights into how to address some of them.

Inventing Wellness Programs: The first challenge on the TEDMED list is one Gallup knows a lot about. Gallup wellbeing experts Tom Rath and Jim Harter spent years researching the essential elements of wellbeing. They eventually narrowed it down to five -- career, social, financial, physical, and community. The elements are universal and interconnected -- and they go beyond the eating right and exercise parts of wellbeing to reveal what makes life worthwhile. Rath and Harter wrote a book about these five elements and created a program that empowers organizations and individuals to measure and improve their wellbeing. They also analyze the costs to workplaces of not managing employees' wellbeing here. 


The Caregiver Crisis: Gallup and Healthways have conducted a large amount of research on caregiving in America. Their surveys find that more than one in six American workers also act as caregivers and that the middle-aged, blacks, and Hispanics are among the most likely to be caregivers. Gallup also knows that caregivers face significant physical and emotional issues and that caregiving costs the U.S. economy about $25.2 billion in lost productivity per year. TEDMED wants to explore the question: "What innovations can we develop specifically to support the caregiver community?" Well, the Gallup-Healthways data, taken together, reveal that a start would be providing caregivers the support and assistance they need in the workplace. Specifically, many working caregivers lack access to support groups, ask-a-nurse type services, financial/legal advisers, and assisted living counselors -- all of which could help offset the challenges they face.

The Obesity Crisis: Gallup and Healthways track American adults' weight status daily as part of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index. Although obesity declined very slightly in 2011, it remains high at 26.1%. When you add to that the percentage of adults who are overweight, you end up with more than half the U.S. adult population at an unhealthy weight. Targeting the groups who are struggling the most with obesity -- blacks, low-income Americans, and those aged 45 to 64 -- may be a first step toward addressing the nation's costly and deadly obesity crisis.

Managing Chronic Diseases: High blood pressure (30%) and high cholesterol (26.2%) are the most prevalent chronic illnesses in the United States. Asthma (11.7%) and diabetes (10.9%) also affect large portions of the population. Reducing obesity, and getting more Americans to exercise frequently and eat healthier are three key challenges to tackling high rates of chronic disease.

Making Prevention Popular: Gallup wellbeing experts Tom Rath and Jim Harter, in their aforementioned book "Wellbeing: The Five Essential Elements," describe what their research found on how to boost prevention habits. One of their major discoveries is the need to "make better choices in the moment." The authors note that "problems occur when our daily actions work against the best interests of our overall, long-term wellbeing." Rath and Harter say that if individuals find small opportunities each day to change their routine by even a little and set what they call "positive defaults" people can significantly improve their wellbeing in the long-run.

Impact of Poverty on Health: Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index data find that health disparities across income groups in the United States are wide-ranging. Lower-income Americans are more likely than their higher-income counterparts to have chronic health problems, to be obese, and to experience negative emotions and are less likely to have access to healthcare and to have good health habits.

Impact of Stress: TEDMED asks: "Given that stress is difficult to quantify and varies from person to person, how do we better understand the role of stress in the larger picture of health?" Well, it turns out, Gallup and Healthways actually know a great deal about how to measure stress. In fact, they monitor it in the United States on a daily basis. The more than one million interviews Gallup and Healthways have conducted since 2008 reveal the following key points: 1. Stress is highest among those in their 20s and then declines significantly with age; 2. Those who spend more time socializing experience less stress; 3. Workers who are engaged in their jobs are immune to stress from long commutes; 4. Americans experienced some of their most stressful days during the financial crisis; 5. Very religious Americans experience less stress than those who are less religious; and 6. Those who are obese report more stress than those who aren't. Those are just some of the discoveries Gallup and Healthways have made about stress. You can read more here.

Promoting Active Lifestyles: See "Making Prevention Popular" above. Leading an active lifestyle is an inextricable part of prevention.

Addressing Healthcare Costs: This is a big one. A really big one. And one that leaders will need to come at from a lot of different angles -- this involves legal, economic, and ethical perspectives. The U.S. Supreme Court is currently debating the who should pay part, as they argue the legality of President Barack Obama's healthcare law. But, regardless of the court's decision, the healthcare industry, businesses, and individuals will all play a role in addressing the incredibly complex issue of high healthcare costs. You can review Gallup's need-to-know facts about healthcare here and learn about the uninsured, whether the 2010 healthcare law is having an impact and what Americans think about it, and how Americans feel about the U.S. healthcare system.

Learn more about all of the 20 great challenges here. As TEDMED further explores these challenges in the year ahead, we will continue to provide you with everything Gallup knows about each topic here on Thrive. Gallup and Healthways survey 1,000 American adults about their health and wellbeing every day and report new findings every week at Gallup.com.

Who's Most Likely to Be Thriving and Suffering Worldwide

Gallup is out with its 2011 global rankings of "thriving" and "suffering" -- encompassing 146 countries. Those who are thriving tend to have higher incomes, more education, good health, and social support. Those who are suffering often have lower incomes, less education, and less access to basic needs such as food, shelter, and healthcare.

Gallup classifies respondents as "thriving," "struggling," or "suffering" according to how they rate their current and future lives on a ladder scale with steps numbered from 0 to 10 based on the Cantril Self-Anchoring Striving Scale. Gallup considers people to be thriving if they rate their current lives a 7 or higher and their lives in five years an 8 or higher, and classifies people as suffering if they rate their current lives a 4 or lower and their lives in five years a 4 or lower.

Nearly one-quarter of adults worldwide (24%) are "thriving," while 13% are "suffering." Here is a summary of who is thriving, suffering, making progress, and falling behind worldwide:

Thriving

Bests

• Denmark had the largest percentage of thriving adults (74%), trailed by other wealthy and developed countries such as Canada and the Netherlands, both at 66%.
• Wellbeing was generally highest again in the Americas, where a median of 39% were thriving.
• Ghana had the largest gain in thriving in 2011 (29%), increasing 19 percentage points from 2010.

Worsts

• Cambodia ranked last for thriving, with only 2% of its population thriving.
• African countries generally dominate the list of countries where thriving is lowest, accounting for more than half of the 28 countries where thriving was 10% or lower.
• Fewer than one in 10 were thriving in Egypt (9%) and Yemen (8%), where unrest continued throughout much of 2011.
• El Salvador had the largest loss in thriving in 2011 (17%), decreasing 22 percentage points from 2010.

Suffering

Bests

• Suffering was as low as 1% or less in the United Arab Emirates, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Canada, Thailand, and Brazil.
• Median suffering was lowest in the Americas at 6%.
• Suffering declined the most in Macedonia, falling 25 percentage points last year from 38% in 2010.

Worsts

• Bulgaria had the negative distinction of leading the "suffering" list with 45% of its population suffering, followed by Yemen (38%) and Armenia (35%).
• Suffering spiked in places such as Iran, Afghanistan, and El Salvador in 2011 -- earning them a spot near the top of the world's most suffering list.
• Suffering increased the most in El Salvador, climbing to 33% in 2011 from 9% in 2010.

To see wellbeing metrics for more than 150 countries, visit Gallup's Worldwide Tracking interactive.

Health and Wellbeing Bests and Worsts -- States and Cities

Gallup and Healthways recently released 2011 Well-Being Index state and city findings -- covering everything from access to healthcare to obesity rates. These data are based on daily surveys of at least 1,000 U.S. adults nationwide conducted from January through December 2011.

Here are the states and cities that performed best and worst on key wellbeing metrics in 2011:

Overall Wellbeing
Bests: Hawaii residents had the highest wellbeing in the nation in 2011 with a Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index score of 70.2 out of 100, maintaining that state's No. 1 status for a third consecutive year. Western and Midwestern states earned 9 of the 10 highest wellbeing scores. Lancaster, Pa., had the highest Well-Being Index score in the U.S. across the 190 metropolitan areas that Gallup and Healthways surveyed in 2011, followed by four university towns.

Worsts: West Virginia residents had the lowest wellbeing, with a score of 62.3, slightly improved from 61.7 in 2010. Southern states accounted for half of the 10 lowest wellbeing scores. Huntington-Ashland, W.Va.-Ky.-Ohio, had the lowest Well-Being Index score among metropolitan areas for the second year in a row.

Obesity
Bests: Colorado had the lowest adult obesity rate in the nation in 2011, as it did last year, and it is the only state where fewer than 20% of adults are obese. The national obesity rate declined slightly to 26.1% in 2011, from 26.6% in 2010. Western and Northeastern states still boast the lowest obesity rates in the country. People living in the metropolitan area of Boulder, Colo., were the least likely to be obese, at 12.1%.

Worsts: West Virginia holds on to the negative distinction of being the state with the highest obesity rate; 35.3% of its residents are obese, the highest for any state that Gallup and Healthways have found since 2008. Obesity rates remain highest in many Southern and Midwestern states. McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, Texas, residents were the most likely to be obese among the residents in the 190 metropolitan areas surveyed in 2011, at 38.8%

Chronic Disease
Bests: Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah were the states with the lowest rates of high blood pressure, respectively. Colorado, Montana, and Minnesota were the states with the lowest rates of diabetes. The rates of the two diseases were unchanged in almost all states and even declined in some in 2011.

Worsts: West Virginia residents had the highest rates of diabetes, followed by Kentucky and Mississippi. Residents of West Virginia, Mississippi, and Alabama had the highest rates of high blood pressure.

Health Insurance

Bests: Massachusetts remains the state with the lowest percentage of uninsured, at 4.9%. Vermont, Hawaii, Connecticut, Minnesota, and Wisconsin also have uninsured rates below 10%.

Worsts: Texas continues to be the state with the highest percentage of residents without health insurance, at 27.6%. States with the highest proportions of residents lacking health insurance are in the Southern and Western parts of the country.

Community Optimism
Best: Across 190 U.S. metro areas, residents of Provo-Orem, Utah, are the most likely nationwide to say their city or area is getting better as a place to live, at 76%.

Worst: Residents of Binghamton, N.Y., are the least optimistic, at 27.8%.

To map, sort, and export state wellbeing data, be sure to visit Gallup's "State of the States" interactive.

Very Religious Americans Have Wellbeing Edge

There is something about being very religious in the United States that leads to or inherently goes along with having higher wellbeing. Gallup finds that this group of Americans -- those who say religion is an important part of their daily life and who attend a place of worship at least every week or almost every week -- score significantly higher on the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index than the moderately religious and the nonreligious.

Leading experts discussed the growing evidence of this relationship between religion, wellbeing, and health at a special Gallup summit held on Feb. 16, 2012, in Washington, D.C.

Gallup Editor-in-Chief Dr. Frank Newport revealed that the very religious rate their lives more positively, are less likely to have ever been diagnosed with depression, and experience fewer daily negative emotions. These findings are from parts one and two of a special multipart series on religiosity and wellbeing in America. The third article in the series reveals that the very religious also make much better health choices than do those who are not as or not at all religious. For instance, 14.9% of very religious Americans smoke compared with 26.6% of the moderately religious and 27.6% of the nonreligious. The very religious are also more likely to eat healthy foods and to exercise frequently.

Dr. Chaeyoon Lim, Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin, explained that those who attended religious services experience higher life satisfaction. His research demonstrates that it is not frequency of prayer or belief in God that correlates with life satisfaction; it is having church friends. Churchgoers are happier because of their church friends, which explained 85% of the correlation between church attendance and life satisfaction. Interestingly, people who have no friends at church are less happy than those who do not go to church at all. His research also suggests that having church friends contributes to greater life satisfaction than friends in other contexts.

Although religious individuals have better wellbeing than nonreligious individuals, more religious countries do not have better wellbeing than nonreligious countries after accounting for GDP. Dr. Angus Deaton, Dwight D. Eisenhower Professor of International Affairs and Professor of Economics and International Affairs at Princeton University, used Gallup's global data to discover this contradiction. His research shows that countries with the most unpleasant conditions have the highest religiosity. For this reason, religiosity helps individual wellbeing, not country wellbeing.

Dr. Jim Harter, Chief Scientist, Workplace Management and Wellbeing at Gallup, revealed that the relationship between religiosity and life evaluation is mediated by five specific elements of wellbeing -- career, social, financial, physical, and community. Religiosity improves these areas of wellbeing, which, in turn, leads to higher life evaluation. Dr. Harter suggested that workplaces can learn a lot from successful religious groups to improve employees’ wellbeing.

Dr. Robert Putnam, Malkin Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University, discussed the implications of these findings. He suggested that more research is needed on what it is about religious networks that make people happier.

The bottom line seems to be that these findings can be applied in other contexts to make individuals, workplaces, and the world healthier and happier.

To stay up to date on Gallup’s latest findings on religiosity and wellbeing in the United States, sign up to receive all of our wellbeing news via email alert or RSS.

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State of the Union: Need-to-Know Healthcare Facts

In President Barack Obama's State of the Union address tonight, he will, to some degree, address the healthcare legislation he signed into law in March 2010 -- the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Not only has the law been subject to attacks from Republican lawmakers in Congress and the GOP presidential candidates, but disgruntled states have also forced the issue to the Supreme Court, which will rule on the legality of the individual health insurance mandate later this year.

As Obama discusses the law tonight, here is a list of facts about healthcare to keep in mind:

1. More Americans were uninsured in 2011: Data from the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index finds 17.1% of American adults lacked health insurance in 2011, up from 16.4% in 2010, 16.2% in 2009, and 14.8% in 2008.



2. Young adults appear to be benefiting from healthcare law: Fewer Americans aged 18 to 25 were uninsured last year (24.5%) than in 2010 (27.6%). The percentage of uninsured young adults started to decline shortly after the provision of the healthcare law that allows this age group to stay on their parents' plans kicked in.



3. Not many satisfied with U.S. healthcare costs: Twenty percent of Americans are satisfied with the total cost of healthcare in the country.



4. Most Americans see own healthcare costs going up: More than 7 in 10 Americans continue to say the amount they pay for healthcare has increased.



5. Healthcare costs less of an issue for Medicare/Medicaid beneficiaries: Seventy-six percent of Americans who have Medicare or Medicaid are satisfied with the total cost they pay for healthcare compared with 59% of Americans who get their insurance from a nongovernmental source.



6. Few rate healthcare coverage in U.S. highly: Thirty-three percent of Americans rated healthcare coverage in the country as excellent or good in 2011, down from 39% in 2010. The decline came from Republicans and independents downgrading their views.



7. Majority say healthcare system has major problems: Fifty-seven percent of Americans say the U.S. healthcare system today has major problems, and 16% say it is in crisis.



8. Americans tilt toward favoring repeal of healthcare law: In a Nov. 3-6, 2011, survey (the last time Gallup asked about the law) 47% of Americans said the healthcare law should be repealed and 42% wanted it kept in place. Republicans clearly wanted it repealed, Democrats wanted it kept in place, and independents were more split, but leaned toward repeal.



9. Americans still divided on role of government in providing healthcare: In the same survey, 50% of Americans said it is the federal government's responsibility to make sure all citizens have healthcare and 46% said it is not.



10. However, majority still in favor of healthcare system based on private insurance: The November survey found 56% in favor of a healthcare system based mostly on private health insurance, while 39% were supportive of a government-run system.

Be sure to keep these facts on hand as you watch or listen to the president's address tonight and read even more about healthcare in the United States here on Gallup.com.

How Americans Who Have Lost Weight Made it Happen

Gallup’s annual Health and Healthcare survey results reveal the top weight loss tactics Americans say they have used successfully. The 52% of all U.S. adults who say they have succeeded at losing weight at some point in their lives were more likely to credit dietary changes than exercise.

The top three diet-related tactics Americans said they used were eating less, counting calories/portion control, and eating more natural foods. In terms of those who relied on exercise, just working out in general was the most frequently mentioned form of activity.

The general nature of Americans’ responses -- eating less and working out -- shows that most people find weight-loss success by maintaining good overall health habits, not by relying on quick fixes -- 1% said they had gastric bypass and 4% said they used diet pills/drugs.

Respondents’ full answers, in their own words, are available here.

However, many more Americans need to improve their health habits, with about half reporting to Gallup that they exercise and eat fruits and vegetables frequently. And, for a country grappling with an obesity epidemic and high levels of chronic conditions such as heart disease and diabetes, taking note of how individual Americans say they have succeeded in losing weight provides much-needed insight into what strategies are really working.

If more Americans adopt healthy lifestyles, obesity and other diseases -- and their impact on quality of life, medical costs, and overall wellbeing -- will become less of a problem.

And fortunately, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, even a modest weight loss, such as 5% to 10% of a person’s total body weight, is likely to produce health benefits, such as improvements in blood pressure, blood cholesterol, and blood sugars.



posted by Megan Cochrane

Top Five Findings From Gallup's Annual Health and Healthcare Survey

Gallup is out with the results from its annual Health and Healthcare survey, conducted each November since 2001. In the survey, Gallup asks Americans about macro and micro health and healthcare issues -- from their perceptions of the U.S. healthcare system as a whole to their assessment of their own weight.

Americans' access to healthcare and their own personal health situations are more important than ever, with the costs of both threatening to take down the U.S. economy. The results of Gallup's survey provide insights into how the country is progressing on these issues. Five key findings stand out this year:

1. The majority of Americans remain negative about the quality of healthcare coverage in the United States.


2. Even fewer are satisfied with the total cost of healthcare in the country -- 20% this year.


3. The majority of Americans continue to say the U.S. healthcare system has major problems (57%) -- another 16% say it is in crisis.


4. American men and women's self-reported weight is up nearly 20 pounds since 1990 -- and their ideal weight has increased too.


5. More Americans turn to diet than exercise to lose weight.

Click the links above to get more in-depth findings from this year's annual Health and Healthcare survey and stay tuned to Gallup.com for more on Americans' health and views of the U.S. healthcare system throughout the year.