What is Quality of Life? In what different ways can we think about it?
Quality of life has been increasingly used as concept in contemporary social commentaries and for policy makers across different countries.This essay aims to clarify the definition and weigh the pros and cons of the measurements.First,diverse definitions of quality of life are compared and the necessity of measuring quality of life is discussed.Secondly,the strengths and deficiencies of the existing measurements are analyzed.Then,whether evaluating the quality of life is successful or problematic and to what extent can it be improved is debated.
The definition of quality of life has been argued as equivocal and with vague boundaries.Though the definition varies from cultures or even within one culture from fields to fields, they share common hallmarks while differences lie in whether quality of life is a subjective evaluation or multi-hierarchical construction.(Suchorzepka and Nasiłowska,2004)According to Meeberg(1993)There were four major factors when defining the quality of life. The first aspect was described as whether an individual has a general feeling of satisfaction,while the second and third approach made subdivisions for the first factor.The second element was summarized as whether an individual had the mental capacity to make self-assessment as being satisfied or not.If so ,the physical and psychological health situation of him which the individual referred to was adopted to evaluate his
Quality of daily life is a major factor that in presented in this article. Burd-Sharps and Lewis agree when they write:
The Revolutionary War was a huge moment in history. This had the colonists separate from British control. It was huge for the colonists to break away from British control.
What does quality of life mean? How would a person define the concept of quality of life? Philosophers have studied questions similar to these in the aspect of what constitutes a “good” life for hundreds of years. There really is no certain date to the origin of quality of life as a specific term. In the years 1953 to 1954, two economists have been linked as the ones who used the concept in expressing their concern over ecological dangers of unlimited economic growth (Snoek, 2000). Other economists in the 1950s researched the ideas of what
Lyubomirsky focuses on social psychology and the “development of ‘sustainable’ happiness” (179). She brings the idea of genetics into happiness and different aspects of happiness. She determines that there are three factors to happiness, and she also has a Subjective Happiness Scale to measure happiness. According to Lyubomirsky, the three aspects of happiness are
Happiness is one of the most significant dimensions of human experience. Many people can argue that happiness is a meaningful and desirable entity. Studies indicate that everyone pursues happiness in various aspects of their life. Our four fathers saw happiness as a need, so they made the pursuit of happiness as one of the three unalienable rights branded in the Declaration of Independence. There is a sense of complexity behind the meaning of happiness; its definition is not definite. Think of happiness as a rope; there are many thin fiber strands bonded together to become the strength of the rope. Like the analogy of the rope, there are numerous factors that can contribute to an individual’s overall happiness in life. This study is going to
But over the past few decades, the definititon and concept of health has evolved to encompass more elements than just the physical well-being of a person. This is partly attributed to various researches and studies that have taken place around the world in the last 60 years. Already in 1948, the World Health Organization declared that health is “a state of complete physical, mental and social well being and not
Quality of Life: For the purpose of this paper, the level of living standards which include fundamental factors like health, financial stability, living conditions, and education.
Though there is a seemingly massive amount of people who have just now come out with anti-Islam sentiments, it is clear that this is not really the case. Citing the radical policy suggestions and bans suggested by Donald Trump, there is also reference to American history and how the citizens of America are, unlike Europe and Asia, products of immigrants who chose to come to America (aside from slaves and Native Americans). Citing journalist Rose Wilder Lane in 1936, they take her quote that says Americans are “The most reckless and lawless of peoples…we are also the most imaginative, the most temperamental, the most infinitely varied” . The idea is not that American ethnocentrism is a product of immigrants establishing a hierarchy to benefit those that are in the majority. The report also provides a chart that encompasses attitudes of Muslims toward Americans and Americans toward Muslims (Figure 5) . From the chart we can see that Muslims have a significantly more negative view of Americans than Americans do of them, which again can be attributed to media attention and different international decisions that affect the world. Though the report it is obvious that there is a disconnect between those that agree with the discrimination of Muslims in society and those that oppose it. But from the report is seems rather clear that the rise is ISIS, the Presidential election, and the United States call for surveillance on Muslims have created a sense of distrust among those that
There is not singe factor that determine the quality of health and wellbeing. Many intersecting social and individual factors control the societies health. Income inequality is one of the leading determinant for our health. The effects of income inequality on health maybe understood by examining some social mechanisms, such as public education and healthcare, structural violence, disruption of social cohesion and social capital; and individual risky behaviors. (Kawachi and Kennedy, 1999)
The study by Ridker et al. (2005), “A Randomized Trial of Low-Dose Aspirin in the Primary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease in Women,” is a generally well-articulated article describing the large randomized trial of nearly 40,000 women and the impact of low dose aspirin followed for 10 years on the end-point of cardiovascular events. The authors present a compelling case for investigating the use of aspirin in women specifically citing a lack of data in the literature, and more specifically the differences in metabolism of aspirin by women and the role of hormone therapy, to support the need for a woman specific study.
Health-related quality of life (HRQOL) is a complex construct. Given the array of definitions and perspectives, HRQOL is challenging to define, embed in a theoretical framework, and operationalize. While theory and research on HRQOL in children have grown, adequate methods to measure this construct are needed. As such, a previous review of literature on health related quality of life in children revealed an increase in theoretical articles that addresses the importance of the problem but lack adequate instruments to assess children’s health related quality of life (Ravens-Sieberer & Bullinger, 1998) . Hence, instruments like the KINDL-R were developed.
The World Health Organization defines quality of life as a person’s perceptions of their position in life in the setting of the culture and value systems in which they live in relation to their goals, expectations, standards and concerns (Krageloh et al., 2011). The WHOQOL-100 was developed by the World Health Organization composed of many different doctors and other healthcare providers in order to develop an assessment that could be used internationally and cross-culturally to measure a person’s overall quality of life and well-being, instead of a specific disease. This assessment led to the development of the WHOQOL-BREF, which is an abbreviated version of the WHOQOL-100 because the WHOQOL-100 is too lengthy for practical use; WHOQOL-BREF includes instructions for administering and scoring the assessment. The purpose of this assessment is to provide quality assessments in healthcare, focus attention on all aspects of health, and produce interventions that increase focus on a patient’s well-being (Harper, 1996). There were three main stages to the development of the WHOQOL assessment. The first stage of development consisted of the establishment of a definition of quality of life and how the assessment would be used internationally. The second stage of development explored the quality of life cross-culturally among different fields to establish relevance to the quality of life assessment. The third stage of
Due to the many factors of health and ill health there is no single statistic used to summarise these factors therefore health is described using measures in a number of dimensions such as the effect of various determinants of health. This method of describing health is known as “Health Profiling”. The health profile is the product of describing the health of a population, factors that influence health such as social determinants are taken into consideration. There are several steps in developing a health profile. The first step is purpose to identify the audience and level of analysis required, way in which it will be presented and the language that will be used. Choosing and generating indictors play the second role in the process, the indicators
What makes a horror movie scary? Is it the gruesome murders? Or is it the “thing” lurking in the darkness? Edgar Allan Poe is a writer in the 1800’s and invented the modern horror story. Poe subsumed many elements into his stories that include: death, gloomy settings, and fear. These attributes are some factors that help describe Poe as a Gothic writer.
Even if we use the word “happiness” on daily basis, has anyone ever tried to define it? It’s harder than it seems. When do you feel happy? How is it when you feel happy? Is there any way to understand how much happiness to you experience? This is the main hypothesis of this paper – Can happiness or wellbeing be measured? And if it can be measured, how do we measure it? Happiness is feeling pleasure and enjoyment because of your life, situation (Meriam Webster). Pleasure and enjoyment are very subjective and means different things to different people. This is where the term subjective wellbeing comes from. There are a lot of things that can be included when measuring wellbeing. Various studies have been conducted to assess wellbeing and how does it affect other factors. For example Earlstin(1995) and later on Ferrer-i-Carbonell(2005) have examined the relationship between income and happiness. Gruber(2004) studies the relationship cigarette taxation and happier smokers. Richard, Clark, Gerogellis and Diener(2004) analyze the effect of unemployment on wellbeing.