Well-being and Happiness: Balancing Community with Independence

Abstract

Research evidence garnered from the mid-19^th century onwards, and which gathered momentum during the latter part of the 20^th century, led to increasing recognition on the part of researchers and eventually policy makers that the distribution of such factors as income, housing and employment, along with educational opportunities, are critical influences on a range of physical and mental health and illness indicators. It is these material circumstances which largely structure inequalities in health not only between nations, but also across social and cultural groups within the same countries (Whitehead, 1993; Acheson, 1998; CSDH, 2008). Despite their critical significance for our health chances, material factors do not appear to be able to provide the whole picture however. It is not clear, for example, why average life expectancy in Britain is less than the averages for some other developed countries, such as Sweden, Canada, Italy and Australia or why disparities in health chances between rich and poor within some countries, Britain included; appear on some measures to be increasing (Wilkinson and Pickett, 2010; CSDH, 2008).