What seems like such a simple question is actually not so easy to answer. Oftentimes, to provide an answer, we tend to gravitate towards economic indicators to describe how a country is doing. We look at data on GDP growth, inflation rates, productivity growth, investment levels, etc. This type of data is well documented across most countries, is published frequently (monthly or at most quarterly), and as a result has become the default in how we tend to analyze, talk about, and ultimately rank different countries’ performances. But we must also recognize that economic indicators alone are far from a complete answer.

The team at Mexico News Daily is working hard to bring you the news and information you need to be able to answer this important question. To start with, we cover the country’s economic news on a daily basis. But we understand that it can be difficult to connect the dots so earlier this year, we created a series of monthly indexes. These indexes — the MND Sheinbaum Index, the MND Mexico Economic Index, the MND Peso Index — all attempt to go beyond the raw data and provide a deeper understanding of what is really going on in the country. Our hope is that with this data, readers are willing and able to have a more informed opinion on the direction of the general economy.

That being said, from day one of the creation of these indexes, we acknowledged that they were clearly economic-focused and did not sufficiently take into account other aspects of life in Mexico. We needed more time to research, organize and present additional data in these non-economic areas.

It is with that backdrop that we are very excited to bring you a new series of reports called the MND Mexico Well-being Series. In this series of six reports, we will do a deep dive into dozens of non-economic indicators that help provide more comprehensive insight into the overall well-being of the country. We will look at how Mexico is currently doing in different aspects of well-being, how much progress has been made in the past decade, and how Mexico ranks compared to other countries globally. Mexico is now the 11th most populous country, the 12th largest economy and the sixth largest tourism destination. It is a country that is increasingly present and important on the world stage. Our goal is to answer the question of how Mexico is doing in terms of the overall well-being of its people.

As with all of our work, this analysis is prepared with an attempt to avoid any political bias. It is organized and presented as a fact-based analysis attempting to answer the important question: Beyond economic indicators, how is Mexico progressing in non-economic (well-being) indicators? The goal of this series is to educate and inform those who have the curiosity to learn more about the country. Through this increased visibility, we hope to bring more attention, resources and ultimately improvement in these areas. Many of our readers have experience in these areas and can most certainly provide help in many different ways.

Even with the additional insight that will come with this new series, we acknowledge that there is still a very significant and even more difficult-to-measure cultural component that goes far beyond the data to explain the true well-being of people living in Mexico. Our team is working on how we can organize and present the cultural piece in additional articles coming soon.

The first report in this series, “Health and healthcare,” was published earlier this week. You can read it here:

The MND Mexico Well-being Series, Part 1: Health and healthcare

To accompany each of these deep dive reports, we will also be publishing a shorter-format, more visual “Mexico in Numbers” on each of these topics as well. Be on the lookout for the one on health and healthcare next week.

Stay tuned in the coming weeks for additional MND Mexico Well-being reports on education, poverty, happiness and gender equality — as well as a follow up series on the cutural component underlying all of this data.

We hope that this series of reports will inform and educate you. We also suspect that it will surprise and hopefully inspire you.

Please do give us your feedback on what you read and suggestions on what we might have missed or what additional information you would like to see. And please share these reports with colleagues, friends and family that might be interested in the data as well.

Thanks for reading MND.

Travis Bembenek is the CEO of Mexico News Daily and has been living, working or playing in Mexico for nearly 30 years.