How Would You Score in Harvard's Global Flourishing Study?

Various worldwide surveys attempt to gauge how humanity is faring mentally, measuring everything from happiness and wellbeing to life satisfaction.

Most well known is the UN's World Happiness Report - with Nordic countries invariably taking the top spots - but there's now a new yardstick in the mix, thanks to The Global Flourishing Study. It aims to fill in the gaps left by existing research by examining all aspects of people’s lives, from personal relationships to their sense of meaning and purpose.

America's Harvard University quizzed more than 200,000 people across 22 countries on six continents to build up a picture of human flourishing globally. The research is underpinned by the notion that flourishing isn’t just about feeling good, but about functioning well, too. Over time, the five-year study aims to identify what helps and hinders human flourishing.

“One of the big surprises from the data … is the ordering of the countries,” said Prof Tyler VanderWeele, an epidemiologist at Harvard University. The analysis in Nature Mental Health ranks Indonesia first, followed by Israel, the Philippines and Mexico. The UK, Turkey and Japan take the bottom three spots.

Measuring wellbeing is a notoriously tricky business and the Global Flourishing Study has blind spots, namely its narrow scope of just 22 countries. However, anyone can do a self-assessment as Harvard has made its 12-question survey accessible online to all. Why not give it a go and see how you fare?

“By identifying and nurturing factors that empower individuals and communities to thrive, we can transform how societies approach conflict, cooperation, and the shared pursuit of wellbeing,” said Dr Tyler VanderWeele, director of Harvard’s Human Flourishing Program.

You may like to review that results of the 2025 World Happiness Report.

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