Management Institute for Quality-Of-Life Studies

The halloran philanthropies is undertaking a study focused on the history of well-being. The foundation is interested in documenting (1) the family of concepts that comprise wellbeing (i.e., happiness, life satisfaction, overall quality of life), (2) what data have been collected historically (using cross-sectional or longitudinal surveys) to measure well-being as defined and how, and (3) a notion of well-being embedded in a multi-leveled cultural context (i.e., individuals nested in families, nested in neighborhoods, nested in cities, etc.). The end goal is to develop a more holistic, dynamic and current definition (and model) capturing the essence of "human well-being" that serves the basis of future work in this area. The overall objective is to perform a comprehensive, scholarly and practical documentation of the history of well-being that provides the basis for a better understanding of the current well-being indicator systems and supporting a reference point for future work and projections. The final deliverable should appeal to a wide audience of college-educated adults including quality-of-life/well-being researchers, university educators teaching courses involving the concept of well-being and students enrolling in these courses, public policy officials whose interest is to develop metrics and policies to enhance the well-being of target populations or geographic regions, other foundations that have an interest in well-being related to specific populations or geographic regions, the lay public, and the media. This expansive target set is likely to require a deliverable that is versatile and that can take various forms, modes or versions.