Well Being Assessment

In 1946 the World Health Organisation (WHO) defined health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”. This definition integrates the main concepts of health and identifies that health can be viewed differently by individuals and groups (Bowden, 2006). Health and well-being are the result of a combination of physical, social, intellectual and emotional factors (Dunkley, 2000a).

Factors that can contribute to an individual’s wellbeing include physical and mental health, emotional and intellectual fulfilment and overall contentment. Contentment is often achieved by someone’s’ needs being met for example a person with housing issues may feel content once supported to get a property.

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

The more economic prosperity the greater is the amount and degree of welfare generated and the likeliness in people is welcomed. However, social welfare is one of the major objectives of the nations. Along with this, it should also be noted down that, the government of all the countries and states should focus on the social welfare of the people where people live. It is again true that happiness follows good health. In this way, health is a very important consideration for all the economies of the world (Yih, 2011).

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.

It is difficult to determine how much autonomy we have over our well-being unless we know how to define it. Well-being can be defined as what makes one comfortable in their respective cultural and societal norms. Watters showcases cultural differences through Kirmayer when

There is no universally accepted definition for quality of life but it incorporates the individual’s subjective view of a broad range of clinical, functional, and personal aspects. Researchers have developed two types of quality of life assessments. The first is health related quality of life (HRQOL), which assesses the client’s perception of how their health status affects their physical, psychological, and social functioning, and well-being. The assessment is based on a series of questions the client is asked. The second type is the overall quality of life (OQOL), which focuses on the client’s satisfaction with life in general, not just in relation to the limitations of functioning that are related to disease. According to Laudet (2011), “One influential definition of OQOL drafted by the World Health Organization (WHO) is an individual’s perception of their position in life in the context of the culture and value systems in which they live and in relation to there goals, expectations, standards and concerns” (WHOQOL Group, 1995, para. 5). The standard for measuring OQOL is the WHO quality of life instrument, which assesses the client’s perception of how they are functioning objectively. The subjective views obtained by QOL measures are important because they offer a better perspective to the

general wellbeing, and the outcomes should be accounted for openly and in justifiable shape, to make them accessible for everybody.

Wellbeing is ‘generally understood as the quality of people’s lives. It is a dynamic state that is enhanced when people can fulfil their personal and social goals. It is understood both in relation to objective measures, such as household income, educational resources and health status; and subjective indicators such as happiness, perceptions of quality of life and life satisfaction, (Statham and Chase 2010).’ It is important to acknowledge many factors play a role in measuring childhood well-being but it is necessary to look at both positive and negative indicators in orders to get a realistic overview as well as an overall understanding of well-being as a whole. Throughout the course of this essay both subjective and objective aspects of children’s well-being will be discussed as well as how the value of measuring both aspects can enable us to gain a holistic understanding of childhood well-being.

In today’s world you will hear alluring claims in advertising and wonder if any of it is true. Well not any more! Gallup uses scientifically proven and accepted methodologies in more than 160 countries. They are constantly collecting new and approved data every single day.` Merging decades of clinical research, health leadership, and behavioral economics research to track and understand the key factors that drive well-being. So you want to know if your new mascara will really make the boys look at your pretty eyes? Then go to Gallup.com and look at their Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index to find out more and how they collected their data to get the correct results.

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.

Quality of life refers to the standard of living within a population. Quality of Life can be quantified by the Human Development Index (HDI) which measures a country’s social and economic development out of 1.

Achievement of wellbeing is the nation’s aim, so now how do we in practice with limited resources, political divisions, diverse demographics and actual poverty rising year on year causing 350,000 families alone to access one group of food banks last year( Trussel Trust 2013) , even begin to address this process. The momentum of disease, poverty, isolation moving towards wellbeing, achievement and community is the aim of all public health, an aim to improve the quality of lives lived out in a myriad of circumstances. With this momentum for quality and change wellbeing has been recognised as a measure for quality of life individually and in community and the Prime Minister in 2010 asked the Office of National Statistics (ONS) to measure the nations wellbeing (Cameron, 2010) The ONS attempted to comprehensively assess wellbeing of adults, youth and children including finance, social and human capital , asking questions where networks with others were also seen as a measure of

The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines Health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”

Bailey J. makes out that in adopting such an approach, it is necessary to extend the net so as to cover wider dimensions of well-being using non-conventional indicators of psychosocial and mental health, and environmental, relational and subjective components. In addition to this there should be an appropriate use of econometric and mathematical tools in order to quantify the variables.