Happiness - How is this determined?

https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/worlds-happiest-countries-united-nations-2019/index.html

I have always been fascinated by the concept of happiness - as I think it says a lot about the types of priorities that one's culture has towards life, and what types of expectant people have in general. I also think happiness has a strong link to creativity.
As seen in this article, according to the World Happiness Report, Finland ranks first, followed by Denmark, Norway, Iceland, and The Netherlands.
The Report ranks countries on six key variables that support well - being: income, freedom, trust, healthy life expectancy, social support, and generosity.
On the other hand, the United States came in 19th place, dropping a total of 5 spots since 2017. The article states that addiction is partly to blame - which reminds me of the Ted Talk video of Niel Stevens on what inhibits creativity. The report provides sobering evidence of how addiction are causing "considerable unhappiness and depression in the U.S" and "Social connections are weakening the US as social media usage is raising anxiety, especially among adolescents".
Other major "Superpower" countries such as Japan ranked low - from 54th last year to 58 this year.
But this brings me to a different point - expectation. Happiness is an expectation one has for one's self. In some ways I'm sure this list is accurate - but what if our ideas of happiness are completely different? Culturally, Finland may be happy because they just expect to have something entirely different from Japan. Ambition can determine a lot of how one feels as well.
I guess what I am trying to say is that happiness is more cultural than people realize. I think about my time living in Japan, and how Japanese culture would take more pride in working hard, and does not "Brag" about one's happiness, and would rather say that they are not happy even if they are perfectly content with their lives. And if an American went to go live in Finland or Denmark, it won't equate to one being happy automatically. There are a lot more factors that I think need to be studied for this report. Would love to know what you all think.