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Cooperation and Development, World Health Organization, United Nations) are urging countries to use well-being indicators (e.g., life satisfaction) in addition to traditional economic indicators when making important policy decisions. r As the number of governments implementing this new approach grows, so does the need to continue evaluating the health and well-being outcomes we might observe from policies aimed at improving life satisfaction. r The results of this study suggest that life satisfaction is a valuable target for policies aiming to enhance several indicators of psychosocial wellbeing, health behaviors, and physical health outcomes. Context: Several intergovernmental organizations (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, World Health Organization, United Nations) are urging countries to use well-being indicators (e.g., life satisfaction) in addition to traditional economic indicators when making important policy decisions. As the number of governments implementing this new approach grows, so does the need to continue evaluating the health and ** Contributed equally as senior authors.

Purpose Growing evidence documents strong associations between overall life satisfaction and favorable health and well-being outcomes. However, because most previous studies have assessed satisfaction with one’s life as a whole , we know little about whether specific domains of life satisfaction (e.g., satisfaction with family life, income) might be responsible for longitudinally driving better health and well-being. Methods Data were from 13,752 participants in the Health and Retirement Study—a prospective and nationally representative cohort of US adults aged > 50. We evaluated if positive changes in seven individual domains of life satisfaction (between t 0 ; 2008/2010 and t 1 ; 2012/2014) were associated with 35 indicators of physical, behavioral, and psychosocial health and well-being (at t 2 ; 2016/2018). Results Most domains of life satisfaction were associated with psychological outcomes: satisfaction with family and non-work activities showed the largest associations (sometimes double in magnitude) with subsequent psychological factors, followed by satisfaction with financial situation and income. Further, some domains showed associations with specific physical health outcomes (e.g., mortality, number of chronic conditions, physical functioning limitations), health behaviors (e.g., sleep problems), and social factors (e.g., loneliness). Conclusions As countries seek innovative and cost-effective methods of enhancing the health and well-being of our rapidly aging populations, findings from our study suggest that some domains of life satisfaction have a substantially larger influence on health and well-being outcomes than others. Individual domains of life satisfaction might be novel targets for interventions and policies seeking to enhance specific facets of health and well-being. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11136-021-02977-0.