Oct. 8, 2009 (Business Wire) -- Please be advised that Gallup and Healthways, Inc. (NASDAQ: HWAY) today released the Gallup-Healthways Monthly U.S. Well-Being Report for September 2009.

A key measure of American well-being and optimism within the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index™ (WBI) climbed to an all time high during September, signaling a significant increase in the satisfaction of Americans with their current life evaluation and positive outlook for the future.

The WBI’s Life Evaluation sub-index (LEI) rose 1.7 percentage points in September to close the month at 49.5, a 21-month high. Under the LEI’s classification system, which categorizes individuals as Thriving, Struggling or Suffering based on their self-reported position on a 10 point scale, more Americans are now Thriving – 52.9 percent – and fewer are Struggling – 43.8 percent – than at any point in the past two years.

Overall, well-being in the U.S., as reflected in the WBI’s Composite Index, declined slightly – a non-significant 0.3 percentage points – between August and September, driven by significant drops in the WBI’s Physical Health, Healthy Behavior and Work Environment sub-indices, which fell by 0.7, 0.8 and 1.4 percentage points, respectively. Even with last month’s small decline, the Composite Score has generally trended upward through 2009. September’s absolute score of 66.7 is a 3.4 percentage point improvement from the WBI’s historic low set in December 2008.

For more on the science and methodology behind the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, please visit www.well-beingindex.com.

To download the September report, please click here.

To view in-depth well-being reports for all 50 U.S. states, 435 congressional districts and the District of Columbia, please visit www.ahip.org.