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4 FEBRUARY 2021 | DENVER CATHOLIC T he poll was the latest in a yearly Health and Healthcare survey that Gallup has conducted since 2001 in which they ask Americans to assess their own mental or emotional wellbeing as excellent, good, fair or poor. While those who rate their mental health positively has historically always fallen within the range of 81 to 89 percent, 2020 marked a new low. Seventy six percent of Americans rated their mental health positively as 2020 con- cluded, down nine points from 2019. In layman's terms, what this poll showed is that Americans were less happy in 2020 than they've been in quite some time. It's not sur- prising; the COVID-19 pandemic forced every- body into isolation, requiring the sacrifice of face-to-face, human connection for a less grat- ifying virtual counterpart. Many of the normal activities that keep people's spirits up, such as working out at the gym or seeing a movie at the movie theater were also stripped away, leaving people with fewer outlets to depend upon for contentment. The survey also looked at the changes in Americans' rating of their mental health as excellent between 2019 and 2020 according to different demographic groups: Gender, political party, religious service attendance, race, marital status, age and household income. Across the board, every single group saw a downward trend of those who rated their mental health as excel- lent – all of them, except for one. The only group to see an upward trend in reporting excellent mental health in 2020 were those who identified as religious and said they attended church every week. This group also had the highest level of excellent mental health compared to all of the other sub-groups. As the poster year for hardship that was 2020 came to a much-anticipated end, a rather telling Gallup poll about happiness quietly passed under the radar. In a year where many people across all demographics reported a decrease in overall mental health, one group reported an increase: regular churchgoers. R E LI G IO N AN D HAP P I N E SS BY AARON LAMBERT Managing Editor of the Denver Catholic Finding true happiness in a world trapped by despair