Have you ever wondered how progressed as a human being you are? The American Human
Development Project recently just published the first ever human development research
that helps answer exactly the question of just “How are People doing?” in US and the
affluent world. Unlike traditional measurements consisting of mostly “economic” factors,
the American Human Development Project also weighs in other factors such as “health”
and “access to knowledge” to develop their index.

The following are a few factoids directly from the research:

• The U.S. infant mortality rate is on par with that of Croatia, Cuba, Estonia, and
  Poland; if the U.S. infant mortality rate were the same as that of top-ranked Sweden,
  21,000 more American babies would live to celebrate their first birthdays every year.

• More than half of all personal bankruptcies in the U.S. are related to an inability to
  pay for illness or injury.

• Fourteen percent of the population - some 30 million Americans - lacks the literacy
  skills to perform simple, everyday tasks like understanding newspaper articles and
  instruction manuals.

As for something fun, try out their new “WELL-O-METER” to measure how “WELL-being” you 
are compared to their statistics.

Source: http://www.measureofamerica.org/well-o-meter/

The full report can be found here: The Measure of America: American Human Development Report 2008-2009

- CSRone Team