This article is the second in a multipart series on the wellbeing of the American military. Part one covered active duty military and veteran wellbeing.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Active duty military personnel who have ever been deployed to a foreign war have strikingly similar wellbeing levels as active duty personnel who have never been deployed. In both cases, these levels exceed the wellbeing scores found among U.S. workers in general.

Active duty military personnel who have been deployed are also as likely to rate their lives well enough to be considered "thriving" as those who have not been deployed. Both groups are significantly more likely to be thriving than are American workers overall.

These findings are based on 86,262 interviews with employed Americans aged 18 to 64, from Aug. 1, 2009-June 15, 2010, which were conducted as part of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index. Of these completed surveys, 1,451 were with active duty military personnel between the ages of 18-64 who were residing in the United States at the time they were interviewed, 1,004 of which that had previously been deployed to a foreign war. (Actual combat experience is not determined.)

For more information on what each sub-index of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index comprises, see page 2.

Young military personnel who have been deployed, however, suffer from a slight drop in wellbeing scores compared with their counterparts who have never been deployed, but they still maintain higher wellbeing scores than U.S. workers in general. Those deployed older than 30, who ordinarily would experience a decline in life evaluation as a result of advancing age, instead demonstrate resilience on this metric not found among U.S. workers in general and match their younger counterparts' scores.

Bottom Line

Despite the challenges of serving abroad in a foreign war, American military personnel surpass American workers in overall wellbeing levels regardless of deployment status. While life evaluation clearly holds up regardless of age, the drop in overall wellbeing among those aged 18 to 29 indicates that foreign war deployment is having an impact on wellbeing overall.

Learn more about the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index.

Survey Methods

Results are based on telephone interviews with 86,262 national employed adults, aged 18 and older, conducted Aug. 1 2009-June 15, 2010, as part of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index. Of those surveyed, 1,451 are currently active duty in the U.S. military, including 1,004 who have been deployed to a foreign war and 428 who have never been deployed. (The deployment status of the remainder is unknown.) For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±0.4, +3.0, +3.7, and +5.6 percentage points, respectively. Error ranges will climb higher for individual age groups within each category.

Questions used to discern military involvement and deployment to foreign wars include:

"Have you, or has any member of your household, ever served in the U.S. military?

"Are you currently on active duty, or not?"

"Which war or wars, if any, have you been deployed to?"

Interviews are conducted with respondents on landline telephones (for respondents with a landline telephone) and cellular phones (for respondents who are cell phone only and cell phone mostly).

In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

About the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index

The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index measures the daily pulse of U.S. wellbeing and provides best-in-class solutions for a healthier world. To learn more, please visit well-beingindex.com.

The Life Evaluation Index is based on the Cantril Self-Anchoring Striving Scale, which asks people to evaluate their present and future lives on a scale with steps numbered from 0 to 10, where 0 is the worst possible life and 10 is the best possible life. Those who rate today a "7" or higher and the future an "8" or higher are considered to be "thriving." Those who rate today and the future a "4" or lower on the scale are considered to be "suffering." The overall Life Evaluation Index score is calculated as the percentage of thriving Americans minus the percentage of struggling Americans.

The Emotional Health Index measures daily smiling or laughter, learning or doing something interesting, being treated with respect, enjoyment, happiness, worry, sadness, anger, stress, and diagnosis of depression.

The Work Environment Index measures job satisfaction, ability to use one's strengths at work, supervisor's treatment (more like a boss or a partner), and the formation of a trusting work environment.

The Physical Health Index is determined by sick days in the past month, disease burden, health problems that get in the way of normal activities, obesity, feeling well-rested, daily energy, daily colds, daily flu, and daily headaches.

The Healthy Behavior Index includes four items: smoking, eating healthy, weekly consumption of fruits and vegetables, and weekly exercise frequency.

The Basic Access Index is determined by access to clean water, medicine, a safe place to exercise, and affordable fruits and vegetables; enough money for food, shelter, healthcare; having health insurance, having a doctor, having visited a dentist recently; and satisfaction with the community, the community getting better as a place to live, and feeling safe walking alone at night.