Background
In July 1946, the World Health Organization (WHO) wrote in its constitution that: “Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” How do we get closer to this ideal and how do we measure it in positive terms? We know what it means to be sick. What does it mean to be well? How do we the measure success of prevention programs? What is our vision for global wellness? The World Economic Forum has created the Global Competitiveness Indicators where each country is measured up against each other for their ability to economically compete in the global market place. Within this competitiveness indicator, health and education are small factors of competitiveness. The health component currently measures factors such as life expectancy, maternity and child mortality, and prevalence of infectious diseases like malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and diarrhea. In this instance, health is primarily being defined within a disease framework. The YGL Healthcare Taskforce would like to create and test a “Wellness Factor” which would measure global wellness compiling various indicators that go beyond infectious diseases and life expectancy. It would be a “measure of success” for all kinds of prevention programs around the world implemented by government, private sector and civil society. It also may become an indicator of productivity potential and future disease risk/rates.
Looking For
- Other areas in the world which are measuring wellness, research on wellness factors, governments who started working with wellness
- Define a working definition of wellness
- Outline possible indicators of wellness
- Compile the indicators and test for relevancy
- Communication around wellness factors, press and media plan, evaluation plan of initiative
- Implementation of the wellness factor
Leaders
Co-chairs: Teresa Kay-Aba Kennedy, Johann Koss Members: Andrey J. Zarur, J. Joseph Kim, Bjarte Reve, Aaron McCormack, Damian Gammell, Eunice Olsen, Jake Leslie Melville, Josef Penninger, Khuat Thi Hai Oanh.
2 Comments
Sam
Posted January 22nd
Have you thought about doing anything inside public school systems in the USA? That’s a hot bed of malnutrition and the like…
Jose Garcia Vega
Posted March 3rd
I think you should conisder the concept of quality of life. Health is a good indicator of wellness, but it falls short of what we need to have well being. Quality of life includes objective and subjective indicators and can be a measure of a holistic well being. There are some efforts to measure this in Mexico, South Korea and Canada. You should explore them and see if that is comething you can use.