Want a secure job? Want to stay healthy? Try moving to Utah.
According to a Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, Utah easily leads the nation in terms of its performance across 13 forward-looking metrics that might determine which states will be the best places to live in the future.
That's because Utah is among the top two best-performing states for low smoking habits, ease of finding clean and safe water, having supervisors who treat workers like a partner rather than a boss, learning something new or interesting on any given day, and perceptions that your city or area are "getting better" rather than "getting worse."
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Minnesota and Colorado followed the Beehive State.
In terms of health measures, Colorado leads all states with the lowest obesity, and residents of Connecticut are the most likely to have visited a dentist in the last year.
West Virginia, followed by Mississippi and Kentucky, are the three states with the lowest overall average ranking across the 13 metrics. West Virginia is ranked last in the country for five of them: economic confidence, learning new and interesting things daily, ease of finding a safe place to exercise, obesity, and smoking.
Findings are based on the results of more than 530,000 interviews with U.S. adults conducted Jan. 2, 2011, through June 30, 2012, as a part of Gallup Daily tracking and the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index.
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