World | UK
Stable blood pressure good gauge of national happiness
Mental health and blood pressure are a better guide to happiness in European countries than economic performance, according to recent research co-authored by a member of the Bank of England's rate-setting monetary policy committee.
- By Scheherazade Daneshkhu, Financial Times
- Published: 00:00 March 4, 2007
London: Mental health and blood pressure are a better guide to happiness in European countries than economic performance, according to recent research co-authored by a member of the Bank of England's rate-setting monetary policy committee.
The review of 16 European countries found that nations that regarded themselves as happy reported lower levels of hypertension. People in Sweden, the Netherlands, Denmark, the UK and Ireland had the fewest blood pressure problems, while those in Portugal, Germany, Italy and Finland were among those with the most.
The paper also examined the quality of mental health in European countries and found similar results - those countries reporting the worst psychological health included Italy, former east Germany, Greece and France, while those with the best mental health were led by Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden and Luxembourg.
"Happy countries seem to have less hypertension," the paper, by David Blanchflower, external MPC member and Andrew Oswald, professor of economics at the UK's Warwick University, concludes. "Psychological health cannot be measured easily but it is high in Denmark and low in [former] East Germany and this, at some still poorly understood level, is what connects the observed data on happiness and hypertension."
The paper, based on a Eurobarometer survey of 15,000 people, is part of an ongoing quest by academics engaged in happiness economics to understand what social and economic policies should be designed to give people a greater sense of well-being, especially in developed nations where the link between economic growth and happiness has broken down.
It is now well-established that people in richer countries tend to be happier than those in poorer ones. However, in economies sufficiently developed to provide most people with a reasonable standard of living, higher economic growth is not reflected in an increased sense of well-being - or happiness.
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