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Human Well-Being Index (HWBI) for U.S. Counties, 2000-2010

Published by U.S. EPA Office of Research & Development (ORD) - National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory (NHEERL) | U.S. Environmental Protection Agency | Metadata Last Checked: January 27, 2026 | Last Modified: 2017-12-15T00:00:00.000+00:00
The Human Well-being Index (HWBI) for U.S. counties is a set of nationally consistent demonstration results that may be used to characterize community well-being. This composite index was developed by U.S. EPA Office of Research and Development in support of its Sustainable and Healthy Communities (SHC) Research. It serves as an endpoint measure for use in the creation of community decision-support tools. The HWBI characterizes community conditions in the context of the flow of economic, social and ecological services. The index calculation approach used a nested-indicator design. A decade (2000-2010) of cultural, economic, and social data were drawn from publicly available sources (e.g., US Census, Bureau of Economic Analysis, American Community Survey, General Social Survey, Centers for Disease Control) to provide the foundation for well-being related indicators. Indicators are integrated into one of eight domains or sub-indices of well-being. These domains were synthesized to represent different aspects of well-being characteristics common across communities of all sizes. Service indicators reflect the availability of select socio-ecological services that influence well-being. Community decisions often result in changes in the flow of community services. Collectively, well-being and service measures provide a means to evaluate relationships between the availability of certain community services and overall well-being. Data used to generate service indicators were also collected from existing data sources. Detailed information about the attributes of the HWBI, its components and related service indicators are described in Indicators and Methods for Constructing a U.S. Human Well-being Index (HWBI) for Ecosystem Services Research (EPA/600/R-12/023. pp. 121) and Indicators and Methods for Evaluating Economic, Ecosystem and Social Services Provisioning (EPA/600/R-14/184. pp. 174), respectively.

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