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Last week, Baylor released the first-wave findings<\/a> of the Global Flourishing Study<\/a> — one of the most comprehensive studies of human existence ever undertaken, and the largest funded research project in Baylor history.<\/p>\n How big a deal is this study? The coverage it attracted is one indication; the results\u00a0were widely covered in major media outlets ranging from The New York Times<\/a><\/em> to National Geographic<\/a><\/em> to CNN<\/a><\/em> to Christianity Today<\/a><\/em> (and more).<\/p>\n Most attempts to measure happiness stop at a surface level. The Global Flourishing Study dives deeper, looking at not just feelings or wealth but all aspects of a person’s life. And it’s doing so on a grand scale, studying more than 200,000 individuals across 20 countries and five years.\u00a0That allows researchers to crunch the numbers in a wide variety of ways (focusing on specific countries<\/a>, age groups<\/a>, religious beliefs<\/a>, etc.). Nature<\/em>, a leading international journal of science, published 35 different studies<\/a> using just the first wave of data. That’s possible because the data is being made freely available to the public, allowing for better utilization of the findings worldwide.<\/p>\n “In some ways, I see this as Baylor\u2019s gift to the world, to look at human flourishing,” says Dr. Byron Johnson<\/a>, director of Baylor’s Institute for Studies of Religion<\/a> (ISR) and co-principal investigator for the study. “This is a gift that keeps on giving… If we can help figure out what makes people flourish or what hinders them from flourishing, maybe we will become more thoughtful as a society. There\u2019s no better place than Baylor to lead a project that will touch so many different aspects of our lives.”<\/p>\n From the first wave of data, three initial insights stand out:<\/p>\n\n