Britain will introduce a "happiness index" to gaugeits population's psychological and environmental wellbeing, a government source told the Guardian newspaper Monday.

　　Prime Minister David Cameron will ask the Office of National Statistics to prepare methods which will measure the "general wellbeing" despite reservations about the timing.

　　"The aim is to produce a fresh set of data ... to be published at a frequency to be decided that assesses the psychological and physical wellbeing of people around the UK," the source told the paper.

　　"That's objective measurements of, for instance, how much recycling gets done around the UK, alongside more subjective measures of psychology and attitudes."

　　Cameron is expected to put the index at the heart of future policy-making, but is in danger of receiving unwelcome results following the government's recent announcement of deep cuts to the public sector.

　　Canada is investigating the viability of adopting of a similar initiative and French president Nicolas Sarkozy announced last year that he intended to use happiness levels as one method of assessing the country's economic progress.

　　Britain already polls the public on their life satisfaction levels, but could become the first country to officially monitor its general happiness.

據《衛報》報道，英國政府內部人士本周一透漏，英國將引入“幸福指數”，以評估國民的心理健康狀況和對環境的滿意度。

　　英國首相戴維 卡梅倫將請國家統計局制定出衡量國民“總體幸福程度”的方法，但具體時間目前尚不可知。

　　知情人士告訴《衛報》說：“此舉的目的在于產生一套新的數據，并定期發布，以評估英國各地居民的身心健康狀況，不過發布頻率尚未確定。

　　“這一評估既有客觀測量標準，例如英國各地循環利用的情況，也有對居民的心理狀況和心態等主觀因素進行的測評?！?/P>

　　卡梅倫想要把這項評估指數置于未來決策過程的核心地位。但是，由于近期政府宣布要大幅削減公共部門開支，他將面臨著不受歡迎的危險。

　　加拿大也在調查引入類似的方案的可行性，法國總統尼古拉斯 薩科奇去年就曾宣布，有意將幸福度作為評估法國經濟發展的標準之一。

　　英國已經就公眾的生活滿意度進行了民意調查，而且，也可能成為首個由官方出面調查國民總體幸福指數的國家。