People in Switzerland are happier than people in the rest of the world, according to the third World Happiness Report. The results are based on six variables including GDP per capita and healthy life expectancy, the Washington Post reports.

The report is produced by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN). The SDSN is a group of leaders from academia, government and the private sector, which was launched with the United Nations in 2012.

The network used results from Gallup World Poll surveys between 2012 and 2014 and analyzed six variables to determine happiness for a country.

SDSN wants to use the results of the World Happiness Report to encourage policymakers to make changes to make citizens happier. One of the report's co-authors Richard Layard said in a press conference, "Our argument lying behind the whole report is policymakers should be making the happiness of the people their goals, which is not a new idea."

Layard also mentions that he considers German Chancellor Angela Merkel "the most interesting world leader on this (topic)." He mentions a wellbeing forum she held in 2013. Merkel and other governments have made efforts to track happiness. The city of Santa Monica, California won a grant to study its citizens' happiness, and Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum wrote an open letter to United Arab Emirates federal employees to determine their levels of happiness.

Reasons for Switzerland's happiness being so high can be attributed to the GDP and life expectancy. The GDP per capita of Switzerland is about $58,000, while the life expectancy is 82.8 years on average.

People in Western Europe are generally happy too according to the study. Seven out of the 10 happiest countries in the report are in Western Europe.

One of the report's editors Jeffrey Sachs says that happiness ratings should be used for the future to make improvements.

"One of our very strong recommendations is that we should be using measurements of happiness ... to help guide the world during this period of the new sustainable development goals," Sachs said.

Sachs said the countries that continued to rank near the top of the list had strong social support systems and mostly honest and accountable governments, the New York Daily News reported.

The United States ranked 15th on the report, behind both Israel and Mexico.