General happiness index of a repeated cross-sectional survey among the general population from 2018 to 2024 in Hong Kong: A data note.

Abstract

Objectives: The General Happiness Index is a vital indicator for reflecting the mental wellbeing of the community and monitoring the changes and trends in various factors that contribute to the index. This data was collected through a repeated cross-sectional survey from 2018 to 2024, which was deemed valuable because of its comprehensive record of the changes of the mental wellbeing of the general population in response to different traumatic events. Such data provided possibilities for policymakers, health and social care researchers and the Government to investigate the impact of those traumatic events and associated salient predictors on mental wellbeing.

Data description: The dataset encompassed 10,070 responses from the public between 2018 and 2024, who have been through several major sociopolitical and pandemic-related events in Hong Kong, namely social unrest in 2019, five waves of COVID-19 outbreaks from 2020 to 2022, and post-pandemic psychosocial issues in 2023 and 2024. The questionnaires comprised the demographics, individual happiness, the 4-item LIFE mental capital scale, personal values, social well-being, satisfaction with external environmental factors, physical and mental health status, and depressive symptoms. Data was collected through online and/or in-person interviews, subject to social conditions and infectious disease outbreaks. Data verification was performed, and additional computations (i.e., mean of mental capital and satisfaction with external environmental factors) were added to enhance interpretability.