{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,23]],"date-time":"2026-10-23T20:52:33Z","timestamp":1792788753435,"version":"4.5.0"},"reference-count":38,"publisher":"Public Library of Science (PLoS)","issue":"9","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,16]],"date-time":"2026-09-16T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1789516800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"The Nova Institute for Health of People, Places and Planet","id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/0148zjm56","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"crossref"}]},{"name":"The Nova Institute for Health of People, Places and Planet","id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/0148zjm56","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"crossref"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["www.plosone.org"],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["PLoS One"],"abstract":"<jats:p>For a more comprehensive understanding of health disparities, consideration must be given not only to morbidity and mortality outcomes but also to more holistic health-related constructs, such as well-being. We assessed differences in well-being across sociodemographic subgroups in the United States (US). We used data from the Gallup National Health and Well-being Index (2014\u20132016, n\u2009=\u2009530,920) to assess independent cross-sectional associations of self-reported race, ethnicity, educational attainment, and rural residence with measures of well-being for non-institutionalized residents from 50 US states and the District of Columbia. Our outcome measures are thriving, calculated from self-reported current and future life evaluation, and the composite Well-Being Index (WBI), calculated from 38 self-reported metrics spanning 5 domains of well-being (Career, Community, Physical, Financial, Social). We summarized these measures for race-education-urban subgroups and tested for interactions among these three factors, before and after adjustment for year of survey completion, age, sex, marital status, household size, and income. Among our sample, 55% were thriving. After adjustment, higher levels of education were associated with increased odds of thriving: compared with those with no high school degree, we found higher odds of thriving for respondents reporting completion of high school\/technical school\/some college (OR=1.61(1.57,1.66)), college (OR=2.77(2.69,2.85)), and postgraduate (OR=3.38 (3.29,3.49)) education. Compared with White respondents, Black (OR (95% CI)=1.15 (1.12,1.17)) and Hispanic (OR=1.26 (1.23,1.29)) respondents had higher odds of thriving; results were similar for WBI, except Asian respondents had also higher WBI after adjustment for all covariates (OR=2.54 (2.28,2.80)). Across race-education-urban subgroups, non-White respondents with a college degree living in urban and rural areas had the highest odds of thriving; White respondents with no college degree living in urban areas had the lowest odds of thriving (p\u2009&lt;\u20090.001 for each), after adjustment. These findings raise questions about how well-being is mediated given the known worse clinical health measures among minoritized groups.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pone.0353745","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,16]],"date-time":"2026-09-16T17:33:45Z","timestamp":1789580025000},"page":"e0353745","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pone.corrections_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Describing well-being in the US by race\/ethnicity, education level, and urbanicity: A cross-sectional study using the Gallup National Health and Well Being Index"],"prefix":"10.1371","volume":"21","author":[{"given":"Brita","family":"Roy","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"New York University Grossman School of Medicine","place":["New York, New York, United States of America"],"department":["Section for Health Equity, Department of Population Health"]},{"name":"New York University Grossman School of Medicine","place":["New York, New York, United States of America"],"department":["Division of General Internal Medicine and Clinical Innovation, Department of Medicine"]},{"name":"The Nova Institute","place":["Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Jeph","family":"Herrin","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Yale School of Medicine","place":["New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America"],"department":["Section of Cardiovascular Medicine, Department of Medicine"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Erica S.","family":"Spatz","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Yale School of Medicine","place":["New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America"],"department":["Section of Cardiovascular Medicine, Department of Medicine"]},{"name":"Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation, Yale-New Haven Health","place":["New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Kiarri N.","family":"Kershaw","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine","place":["Chicago, Illinois, United States of America"],"department":["Department of Preventive Medicine"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Dan","family":"Witters","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Gallup, Inc.","place":["Omaha, Nebraska, United States of America"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-2046-127X","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Harlan M.","family":"Krumholz","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Yale School of Medicine","place":["New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America"],"department":["Section of Cardiovascular Medicine, Department of Medicine"]},{"name":"Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation, Yale-New Haven Health","place":["New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America"]},{"name":"Yale School of Public Health","place":["New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America"],"department":["Department of Health Policy and Management"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Carley","family":"Riley","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"The Nova Institute","place":["Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America"]},{"name":"University of Cincinnati College of Medicine","place":["Cincinnati, Ohio, United States of America"],"department":["Department of Clinical Pediatrics"]},{"name":"Cincinnati Children\u2019s Hospital Medical Center","place":["Cincinnati, Ohio, United States of America"],"department":["Division of Critical Care"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"340","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,16]]},"reference":[{"issue":"4","key":"pone.0353745.ref001","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"461","DOI":"10.1177\/0890117120915113f","article-title":"Leveraging the rest of society: aligning healthy people 2030, well-being in the nation, and other national health indicators with workplace health and well-being","volume":"34","author":"NP Pronk","year":"2020","journal-title":"Am J Health Promot"},{"key":"pone.0353745.ref002","unstructured":"Diener E, Lucas RE, Oishi S. 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