Studies from University of Manchester Have Provided New Data on Public Health (Determinants of subjective well-being in representative samples of…

Studies from University of Manchester Have Provided New Data on Public Health (Determinants of subjective well-being in representative samples of nations)

By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Health & Medicine Week -- New research on Health and Medicine - Public Health is the subject of a report. According to news reporting out of Manchester, United Kingdom, by NewsRx editors, the research stated, "Maximising the happiness and life satisfaction [i. e. subjective well-being (SWB)] of citizens is a fundamental goal of international governmental organizations' policies. In order to decide what policies should be pursued in order to improve SWB there is a need to identify what the key drivers of SWB are."

Our news journalists obtained a quote from the research from the University of Manchester, "However, to date most studies have been conducted in unrepresentative samples of largely ` developed' nations. Data from the latest World Value Survey (2010-14) and gathered 85 070 respondents from 59 countries (Age 1-99 years, Mean = 42, SD = 16.54; 52.29% females) were pooled for the analysis. A cross-sectional multilevel random effects model was performed where respondents were nested by country. The average levels of SWB varied across countries and geographical regions. Among the lowest 10 SWB countries are nations from: Eastern Europe and Former Soviet Union and Middle East and North Africa. Factors driving SWB include state of health, financial satisfaction, freedom of choice, GDP per capita, income scale, importance of friends, leisure, being females, weekly religious attendance, unemployment and income inequality. Nevertheless, according to Cohen's rules of thumb, most of these factors have ` small' effect sizes. Thus, the main factors that possibly will improve the SWB of people across the globe are: state of health, household's financial satisfaction and freedom of choice. To maximize the well-being of the population, policy makers may focus on health status, household's financial satisfaction and emancipative values."

According to the news editors, the research concluded: "The levels of prosperity and political stability appear to positively improve the SWB of people."

For more information on this research see: Determinants of subjective well-being in representative samples of nations. European Journal of Public Health, 2017;27(2):377-382. European Journal of Public Health can be contacted at: Oxford Univ Press, Great Clarendon St, Oxford OX2 6DP, England. (Oxford University Press - www.oup.com/; European Journal of Public Health - eurpub.oxfordjournals.org)

Our news journalists report that additional information may be obtained by contacting K.H. Ngamaba, University of Manchester, Sch Psychol Sci, Manchester M13 9PL, Lancs, United Kingdom (see also Health and Medicine - Public Health).

Keywords for this news article include: Manchester, United Kingdom, Europe, Public Health, Health and Medicine, Investment and Finance, University of Manchester.

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