Drivers of well-being in Hawaii: Quantifying individual and community impacts

From UHERO, September 19, 2019

In Gallup’s annual well-being index, Hawaii occupied the #1 spot among US states for six out of the past 10 years (slipping to #3 in the latest 2017 survey) despite having one of the nation’s highest costs of living. Thus, Hawaii presents a unique environment to study happiness and well-being.

This report presents our analysis of which individual and community factors are most associated with well-being.

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Wellbeing and Housing Report Supplement

From UHERO, September 19, 2019

The goal of this report is to summarize how neighborhood housing price appreciation can impact quality of life beyond individual level impacts (see Love and Garboden 2019).

We first discuss how housing market indicators, particularly appreciation, can be measured and summarize different patterns across Hawaii.

In answer to our our main question, we find few statistically significant associations between these measures and well-being.

Data limitations, however, restrict our ability to assert a null effect. We conclude with next steps for research.

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