National Well-being

I'm exploring whether we can usefully model wellbeing data and interventions, using wemwbs outcomes data post intervention along with other outcomes that impact on services. We have found how interventions increase people's wellbeing from low to moderate.  Is there any data on natural stability of wellbeing/ life satisfaction in the population - 'untreated' movement between high and low wellbeing? The paper on contribution of longitudinal studies addresses this but I don't think there's an easy answer on what this looks like?

Jude

I don't know if this helps, but the European Social Survey carries substantially more subjective well-being (SWB) data than the ONS.  There are now five completed waves  (2002 , 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2010) and another wave currently in the field.  Data files are available in SPSS or SAS format and questionnaires in pdf.  The 2010 survey was conducted in 26 countries.

I've been doing some analysis comparing ESS to ONS data, not easy as the questions and categories are not the same: moreover there are only four SWB questions in ONS to use as dependent variables and too few others to use as predictors.  The ONS material has been used by Aileen Hingston for a U3A talk she's giving this week on the apparent U-shaped distribution of SWB across age groups (see the discussion on SWB of the over-50s elsewhere on this site).  We've been trying to tease out other variables which might explain this, but these are very few and far between since ONS surveys are geared more to moniitoring social policy areas amenable to government intervention (such as housing and employment) than to identifying, measuring and treating personal euphoria/distress.

I've been replicating my ONS analysis on the British data from the 2010 ESS wave and have attached a document showing which ESS variables I'm exploring,  It's early days yet, but the ESS material is much more satisfying to work with.  I'm not sure yet what arrangements are for distributing our findings, but I'm a strong believer in immediate and free access.  Most likely I'll add reports and articles to the Subjective Social Indicators page on my website, which, as well as useful links, already contains a wealth of material from the Social Science Research Council Survey Unit Quality of Life in Britain surveys I did with the late Dr Mark Abrams in the early 1970s

Incidentally what is wemwbs?

John Hall
johnfhall@orange.fr
http://surveyresearch.weebly.com






Show Original Message -------------------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 23-10-2012 07:48
From: jude stansfield
Subject: Stability in population wellbeing state

I'm exploring whether we can usefully model wellbeing data and interventions, using wemwbs outcomes data post intervention along with other outcomes that impact on services. We have found how interventions increase people's wellbeing from low to moderate.  Is there any data on natural stability of wellbeing/ life satisfaction in the population - 'untreated' movement between high and low wellbeing? The paper on contribution of longitudinal studies addresses this but I don't think there's an easy answer on what this looks like?

Many thanks John, I will have a look through what you have sent.  WEMWBS is the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale which has been used in some recent studies, including the NW survey I am working on, as well as in pre and post intervention evaluations.  

Incidentally the survey may have useful data on factors associated with age, we found the U-shaped curve but haven't had capacity to analyse all the data on age associations but these include factors around relationships, social networks, area satisfaction, participation, mental wellbeing, health, lifestyles, life events. We have published some interesting age profiles from advanced clustering.  Data is available for anyone interested in doing further analysis from the Centre for Public Health at Liverpool John Moores University. Sample was 18,500 and we are just repeating it with 11,000.www.nwph.net 






Show Original Message -------------------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 24-10-2012 01:04
From: John F Hall
Subject: Stability in population wellbeing state


Jude

I don't know if this helps, but the European Social Survey carries substantially more subjective well-being (SWB) data than the ONS.  There are now five completed waves  (2002 , 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2010) and another wave currently in the field.  Data files are available in SPSS or SAS format and questionnaires in pdf.  The 2010 survey was conducted in 26 countries.

I've been doing some analysis comparing ESS to ONS data, not easy as the questions and categories are not the same: moreover there are only four SWB questions in ONS to use as dependent variables and too few others to use as predictors.  The ONS material has been used by Aileen Hingston for a U3A talk she's giving this week on the apparent U-shaped distribution of SWB across age groups (see the discussion on SWB of the over-50s elsewhere on this site).  We've been trying to tease out other variables which might explain this, but these are very few and far between since ONS surveys are geared more to moniitoring social policy areas amenable to government intervention (such as housing and employment) than to identifying, measuring and treating personal euphoria/distress.

I've been replicating my ONS analysis on the British data from the 2010 ESS wave and have attached a document showing which ESS variables I'm exploring,  It's early days yet, but the ESS material is much more satisfying to work with.  I'm not sure yet what arrangements are for distributing our findings, but I'm a strong believer in immediate and free access.  Most likely I'll add reports and articles to the Subjective Social Indicators page on my website, which, as well as useful links, already contains a wealth of material from the Social Science Research Council Survey Unit Quality of Life in Britain surveys I did with the late Dr Mark Abrams in the early 1970s

Incidentally what is wemwbs?

John Hall
johnfhall@orange.fr
http://surveyresearch.weebly.com





-------------------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 23-10-2012 07:48
From: jude stansfield
Subject: Stability in population wellbeing state

I'm exploring whether we can usefully model wellbeing data and interventions, using wemwbs outcomes data post intervention along with other outcomes that impact on services. We have found how interventions increase people's wellbeing from low to moderate.  Is there any data on natural stability of wellbeing/ life satisfaction in the population - 'untreated' movement between high and low wellbeing? The paper on contribution of longitudinal studies addresses this but I don't think there's an easy answer on what this looks like?