Dungannon one of ‘happiest’ places in UK while Cookstown residents ‘most anxious’

According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) five happiest places in its wellbeing survey were Antrim, Fermanagh, Omagh and Dungannon in Northern Ireland, and Babergh, Suffolk.

The ONS survey of wellbeing suggested that, overall, people were more satisfied with their lives than at any time since 2011 when ONS began collecting this data.

However, in its study of anxiety levels Cookstown came second only to Hackney in London for the highest levels of anxiety.

Four questions were asked by researchers in the survey of 165,000 people:

Overall, how satisfied are you with your life nowadays?

Overall, to what extent do you feel the things you do in your life are worthwhile?

Overall, how happy did you feel yesterday?

Overall, how anxious did you feel yesterday?

People were asked to give their answers on a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 is ‘not at all’ and 10 is ‘completely’.

Northern Ireland was the only country where average ratings for a sense that what one does in life is worthwhile (8.0), happiness (7.7) and anxiety (2.8) were significantly different to the UK averages, with people in England, Scotland and Wales reporting similar figures.

The personal wellbeing statistics are used to inform government decision-making, complementing traditional measures of progress and quality of life such as unemployment and household income.