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Emotions have been shown to play a critical role in health outcomes, but research on this topic has been limited to studies in industrialized countries, which prevents broad generalizations. This study assessed whether emotion-health connections persist across various regions, including less-developed countries, where the degree to which people’s fundamental needs are met might be a better predictor of physical well-being. Individuals from 142 countries (N = 150,048) were surveyed about their emotions, health, hunger, shelter, and threats to safety. Both positive and negative emotions exhibited unique, moderate effects on self-reported health, and together, they accounted for 46.1% of the variance. These associations were stronger than the relative impact of hunger, homelessness, and threats to safety and were not simply attributable to countries’ gross domestic products (GDPs). Furthermore, connections …