title: Concordance Between Life Satisfaction and Six Elements of Well-Being Among Respondents to a Health Assessment Survey, HealthPartners Employees, Minnesota, 2011.
abstract: We assessed and tracked perceptions of well-being among employees of member companies of HealthPartners, a nonprofit health care provider and health insurance company in Bloomington, Minnesota. The objective of our study was to determine the concordance between self-reported life satisfaction and a construct of subjective well-being that comprised 6 elements of well-being: emotional and mental health, social and interpersonal status, financial status, career status, physical health, and community support.
  
  
  
  We analyzed responses of 23,268 employees (of 37,982 invitees) from 6 HealthPartners companies who completed a health assessment in 2011. We compared respondents' answers to the question, "How satisfied are you with your life?" with their indicators of well-being where "high life satisfaction" was defined as a rating of 9 or 10 on a scale of 0 (lowest) to 10 (highest) and "high level of well-being" was defined as a rating of 9 or 10 for 5 or 6 of the 6 indicators of well-being.
  
  
  
  We found a correlation between self-reported life satisfaction and the number of well-being elements scored as high (9 or 10) (r = 0.62, P < .001); 73.6% of the respondents were concordant (high on both or high on neither). Although 82.9% of respondents with high overall well-being indicated high life satisfaction, only 34.7% of those indicating high life satisfaction reported high overall well-being.
  
  
  
  The correlation between self-reported life satisfaction and our well-being measure was strong, and members who met our criterion of high overall well-being were likely to report high life satisfaction. However, many respondents who reported high life satisfaction did not meet our criterion for high overall well-being, which suggests that either they adapted to negative life circumstances or that our well-being measure did not identify their sources of life satisfaction.
authors.affiliation: HealthPartners, Minneapolis, Minnesota.|HealthPartners Institute, Minneapolis, Minnesota.|Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts.|HealthPartners, Health Promotion Department, 8170 33rd Avenue South, Bloomington, MN 55425. Email: nico.p.pronk@healthpartners.com.
authors.forename: Nicolaas P
authors.initials: NP
authors.lastname: Pronk
authors.affiliation: HealthPartners, Minneapolis, Minnesota.|HealthPartners Institute, Minneapolis, Minnesota.|University of Minnesota School of Medicine, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
authors.forename: Thomas E
authors.initials: TE
authors.lastname: Kottke
authors.affiliation: HealthPartners, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
authors.forename: Marcia
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lowry
authors.affiliation: HealthPartners, Minneapolis, Minnesota.|HealthPartners Institute, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
authors.forename: Abigail S
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Katz
authors.affiliation: HealthPartners, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
authors.forename: Jason M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Gallagher
authors.affiliation: HealthPartners, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
authors.forename: Susan M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Knudson
authors.affiliation: HealthPartners, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
authors.forename: Sachin J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Rauri
authors.affiliation: HealthPartners, Minneapolis, Minnesota.|HealthPartners Institute, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
authors.forename: Juliana O
authors.initials: JO
authors.lastname: Tillema
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D006282:Health Personnel; D006304:Health Status; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008910:Minnesota; D010549:Personal Satisfaction; D011788:Quality of Life / Q000523:psychology*; D057566:Self Report; D055815:Young Adult