How well are your needs being met by your local community? That's what the GiveWell Community Foundation and United Way of Central Florida set out to learn in their two-year study of Polk, Highlands, and Hardee Counties. Results were recently released in the United Community Needs Assessment (UCNA) report.

The UCNA study used surveys, focus groups, and other recent studies to analyze challenges in six domains: Economic and employment opportunities, housing, education, food security, transportation/infrastructure, and quality of life.

According to the report, 56% of Polk residents responded that they were "thriving" when it came to their well-being (page 54 if you're following along at home). Meanwhile, 42% claimed to be "struggling," and 2% reported "suffering."

Over 1,600 Polk residents answered the UCNA's survey questions about their quality of life (page 65). Here's how many respondents agreed with these statements:

83% — Their community is a good place to raise kids
82% — Those in their community are happy with where they live
81% — Residents can easily access outdoor facilities and parks
78% — Their community is clean and well-maintained
75% — Those in their community can easily access technology
72% — Their community is accepting of those from different backgrounds
65% — People in their community work hard to address local issues

Here's how Polk residents describe their quality of life. | Image by LALtoday

Overall, 45% of Polk residents reported that they had a "good" quality of life, 29.2% reported an "okay" quality of life, 13.1% said theirs "needs improvement," and 12.6% described theirs as "great."

Respondents said that they feel the local quality of life has improved in recent years (page 67), and they called for more housing, entertainment, and community spaces. Lakelanders also responded that the community has made efforts to be more inclusive.

If you're interested in learning more about the UCNA results, check out the Polk County Snapshot.

What our readers say

We were curious how would our readers wouldrate their quality of life, so we asked them in a survey.

The first question asked readers to rate their quality of life on a scale of 1-10 (with 10 being the best). The average score was 7.8.

In the next question, readers were asked if they agreed with the statements in the UCNA's survey. The majority of respondents agreed with each statement. "Residents in my community can easily access outdoor facilities and parks" had the most agreement with 83%. "People in my community work hard to address local issues" had the lowest agreement with 50%.

When it came to describing their quality of life, here's how the numbers shook out:

50.6% — Great
30.7% — Good
9% — Okay
9.6% — Needs improvement

If you didn't get to share your thoughts, you can still respond to our quality of life survey.