Urban Health and Development Bulletin Vol . 6 , Nos . 1 & 2 , March & June 2003 CONTENTS

Worldwide, policy-makers and planners often overlook the advantages of including subjective indicators in their social imp act assessments. This oversight may be due to lack of knowledge of the role of different types of social indicators in social reporting. Quality of life studies, a subdiscipline of sociology with a forty-year history, has much to offer in the evaluation of social policy. In particular, subjective indicators – based on citizen perceptions, assessments and satisfactions – pinpoint areas of discontent and unintended consequences as well as the positive benefits of social policies. Satisfaction measures have t he distinct advantage over many objective indicators in that they provide a common denominator to compare impacts across different sectors within regions and across regions. There is general consensus among quality of life researchers that only a judicious mix of subjective and objective indicators can paint the true picture of society and social reports should draw on both types of indicators.