Britain will introduce a "happiness index" to gauge¹ its population's psychological and environmental wellbeing, a government source told the Guardian² newspaper Monday.

据《卫报》报道，英国政府内部人士本周一透漏，英国将引入“幸福指数”，以评估国民的心理健康状况和对环境的满意度。

Prime Minister David Cameron will ask the Office of National Statistics to prepare methods which will measure the "general wellbeing" despite reservations（保留，预定） about the timing³.

"The aim is to produce a fresh set of data ... to be published at a frequency to be decided⁴ 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 subjective⁵ measures of psychology⁶ 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 sector⁷.

Canada is investigating the viability⁸（生存能力，可行性） 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.