scholarly journals Knowing Well-being: A History of Data

2021 ◽  
pp. 35-66
Author(s):  
Susan Oman

AbstractWhat is well-being? Well-being has become synonymous with the multi-billion-dollar wellness industry, whilst also being rooted in ancient philosophy and religious practices. It has no universal definition across time, place or scientific discipline, yet the very term ‘statistics’ was invented to measure human happiness.This chapter contextualises the history of well-being data and development as one which is tied to political and technological change, firstly, in the desire to monitor human welfare, and secondly, for policy. Public management strategies embraced economic approaches to auditing, as a means to define value and efficiency in social policy choices. The chapter considers how well-being data became co-opted into an ostensibly rational process of decision-making and evaluation, becoming a tool of policy—for good and bad.

Author(s):  
Christina A. Downey ◽  
Reggie E. Henderson

This chapter traces the history of examinations of well-being since the founding of psychology in 1879. Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi (2000) asserted that positive psychology as a scientific discipline was to focus on empirical examinations of valued individual experiences and traits, as well as group and institutional characteristics that mark positive functioning. Positive psychology set parameters on the types of evidence that would be given credence in the field. Many scholars had described well-being prior to 2000, but much of this work could not counted as within the bounds of the new positive psychology because of how the different movements approached gathering evidence. Therefore, the founding of positive psychology represented another step in an ongoing debate in psychology regarding the conduct of scientific research on human characteristics and behavior, and its accomplishments can be viewed as a paradigm shift in the study of well-being.


2019 ◽  
pp. 96-119
Author(s):  
Laura Mauldin

With the exponential increase in the use of cochlear implants, much has been written about how cochlear implants may have changed deaf identities. Recent research documents a trend toward a more hearing-oriented identity with potential for positive psychological well-being. In this chapter, a hearing sociologist and ethnographic researcher highlights how the clinical context shapes both parental decision making about obtaining cochlear implants for their deaf children and the far-reaching influence that hearing-oriented systems have on this decision-making process for parents, deaf individuals, and deaf communities. The author describes the nature of these hearing-oriented systems and highlights issues related to race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status for cochlear-implanted children. The potential implications for these children are considered. There is a need for research that broadly examines the question of whether and how cochlear implants change the long history of narratives of finding one’s Deaf identity.


Circulation ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 142 (Suppl_3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michel Ibrahim ◽  
Michael Fattouh ◽  
Omar Siddiqi ◽  
Alice K Jacobs

Background: The evidence on recurrent pregnancy-related pericarditis is limited, and management strategies are based mainly on case reports and expert opinion. Case: A 25-year-old G2P1, 28-week pregnant female, with a history of presumed viral pericarditis complicated by pericardial tamponade and recurrent colchicine resistant pericarditis which was successfully treated with a prolonged steroid taper in the postpartum period, now 1 year in remission presents with shortness of breath and pleuritic chest pain with elevated inflammatory consistent with prior presentation of myo-pericarditis. A trans-thoracic echocardiogram (TTE) revealed a mild pericardial effusion without evidence of systolic dysfunction, and pericardial tamponade. Decision-Making: Given prior history of pregnancy related colchicine resistant pericarditis which was complicated by pericardial tamponade around her prior delivery time, it was decided by an interdisciplinary team involving rheumatology, cardiology and obstetrics, to initiate prednisone 10 mg daily. Symptoms subsequently subsided with a down trend of cardiac and inflammatory biomarkers. Daily 10 mg prednisone was to be continued up through delivery but within 2 months she presented yet again with a similar clinical picture and was diagnosed with recurrence of disease. Her prednisone was increased to 20 mg daily with symptom resolution. Two weeks later, she went into labor and received stress dose steroids. She had a normal spontaneous vaginal delivery without any complications. She continued the same dose of 20 mg of prednisone until her follow-up with rheumatology when the decision was made to initiate azathioprine and slowly titrate off the steroids. Conclusion: The case highlights not only the rare association between pregnancy and recurrent pericarditis but also the complexity of its management. The case of our patient underscores the importance of family planning, shared-decision making, and management by an interdisciplinary team comprised of rheumatology, obstetrics/gynecology, and cardiology. There are currently no known well controlled trials of therapy for pregnancy related idiopathic recurrent acute pericarditis.


FACETS ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 1649-1669
Author(s):  
Hugo Thierry ◽  
Lael Parrott ◽  
Brian Robinson

Accounting for ecosystem services (ES)—the ways in which society and people directly benefit from ecological processes and functions—is crucial for developing sustainable landscape management approaches that consider the interrelationship between people and nature. Previous research has produced models that estimate the provision of potential ES by landscapes to help inform policy and stakeholder decision-making. However, most modelling efforts do not consider the delivery of ES to specific human populations or communities, making it difficult to evaluate any possible human welfare implications from alternative land use planning scenarios. In this paper, we first explore the recent state of science of ES modelling from the perspective of ES provision and delivery to the people that benefit from them. Second, we propose the addition of some essential aspects of complexity using the classic social–ecological system framework, crucial for developing models to inform pragmatic decision-making. Our propositions are illustrated using simplified examples inspired by sea otter conservation in the seascapes of British Columbia. Integrating these concepts in future ES models should serve as a baseline for future management approaches that more adequately capture the important implications of landscape scenarios on human well-being.


Philosophy ◽  
1926 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 467-480
Author(s):  
John A. Hobson

While there have always been schools of religious and ethical thought favourable to poverty, or a simple life, the general opinion of mankind has always regarded the increasing wealth of an individual or a community as conducive to human happiness. Qualifications have commonly been attached to this judgment in recognition of a certain danger and deceitfulness of riches, especially when rapidly acquired and lavishly expended, but the presumption still stands that wealth in general conduces to well-being. The nature, degree or conditions of this correspondence have, however, received singularly little attention from those thinkers who have given closest study to economic processes. Many of the founders of economic science in this and other countries were manifestly concerned for the general welfare of their fellowmen, and were active workers in many fields of social reform. But, in formulating the concepts and laws of their science, they deemed it unnecessary to give any close or continuous thought to the relations between economic wealth and human welfare. This was due, partly, no doubt to the natural desire to make the subject-matter and the treatment of a new science as definitely concrete and measurable as possible. It was this desire that made monetary valuation paramount in all economic estimates.


2018 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Arceneaux

AbstractIntuitions guide decision-making, and looking to the evolutionary history of humans illuminates why some behavioral responses are more intuitive than others. Yet a place remains for cognitive processes to second-guess intuitive responses – that is, to be reflective – and individual differences abound in automatic, intuitive processing as well.


2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 274-284 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Convery ◽  
Gitte Keidser ◽  
Louise Hickson ◽  
Carly Meyer

Purpose Hearing loss self-management refers to the knowledge and skills people use to manage the effects of hearing loss on all aspects of their daily lives. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between self-reported hearing loss self-management and hearing aid benefit and satisfaction. Method Thirty-seven adults with hearing loss, all of whom were current users of bilateral hearing aids, participated in this observational study. The participants completed self-report inventories probing their hearing loss self-management and hearing aid benefit and satisfaction. Correlation analysis was used to investigate the relationship between individual domains of hearing loss self-management and hearing aid benefit and satisfaction. Results Participants who reported better self-management of the effects of their hearing loss on their emotional well-being and social participation were more likely to report less aided listening difficulty in noisy and reverberant environments and greater satisfaction with the effect of their hearing aids on their self-image. Participants who reported better self-management in the areas of adhering to treatment, participating in shared decision making, accessing services and resources, attending appointments, and monitoring for changes in their hearing and functional status were more likely to report greater satisfaction with the sound quality and performance of their hearing aids. Conclusion Study findings highlight the potential for using information about a patient's hearing loss self-management in different domains as part of clinical decision making and management planning.


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