Human Wellbeing and Flourishing: If Not Now, When?

Editorial T here is a lot that gets in the way of human flourishing. In the world today, we face seemingly unsolvable issues including health disparities , poverty, climate change, food security, clean water, and violence, to name of few. These profound challenges are not unrelated. Lack of education contributes to unemployment, which in turn contributes to poverty. In communities where there is poverty and an absence of jobs, there is also a higher rate of crime and violence that erodes health and wellbeing. In the United States, we have " failing schools " where children are graduating without the basic skills needed to be successful in life. Failure to complete a 13th year of school is associated with a cascade of adverse outcomes that impact lifelong wellbeing. While nations around the world have invested considerable resources into healthcare systems, much of the focus has been on disease management, and it is not at all clear that investing more in healthcare systems produces either health or, even more importantly, wellbeing. Wellbeing is a metric that is garnering attention not only at the level of the individual but also within families, organizations, communities, and even nations. Gallup-Healthways, for example, publishes comparative data on wellbeing