OBJECTIVE We aimed to explore the effect of a poetry writing program for people who had experienced a serious illness. METHOD For this study we randomly assigned 28 volunteer participants with a history of serious illness, usually cancer, to one of two poetry writing workshops. Each group met weekly for 2 hours for 8 weeks. The second group was wait-listed to enable comparison between the two...

Using a unique longitudinal data of British youths we estimate how adolescents' overall happiness is related to parents' exposure to unemployment. Our within-child estimates suggest that parental job loss when the child was relatively young has a positive influence on children's overall happiness. However, this positive association became either strongly negative or statistically insignificant ...

Among gerontologists and health researchers, there is growing recognition of the importance of social participation and inclusion towards the health, well-being and quality of life of people with dementia. This paper examines the role of public artworks to facilitate the social citizenship of people with dementia. It is based on as subset of data from a larger study on community-based programme...

This paper reports findings from a qualitative study of views and understandings of dietary practices in middle class families. Thirty five parents/main food providers of boys and girls aged 13/14 years, living in Eastern Scotland, were interviewed about their and their teenagers' everyday lives, food, health and family practices. One of our aims was to understand more about the social and cult...

OBJECTIVES To investigate the relationship between control variables and measures of subjective well-being. The primary question asked was "who is happy and well, and why?" DESIGN A questionnaire survey and the data was analyzed by examining bivariate relationships between variables of interest. PARTICIPANTS Two hundred and fifty six (256) adults within the age range of 18-88 years. They we...

A rigorous quasi-experiment tested the ameliorative effects of a sabbatical leave, a special case of respite from routine work. We hypothesized that (a) respite increases resource level and well-being and (b) individual differences and respite features moderate respite effects. A sample of 129 faculty members on sabbatical and 129 matched controls completed measures of resource gain, resource l...

We test the relationship between happiness and self-rated health in Italy. The analysis relies on a unique dataset collected through the administration of a questionnaire to a representative sample (n = 817) of the population of the Italian Province of Trento in March 2011. Based on probit regressions and instrumental variables estimates, we find that happiness is strongly correlated with perce...

OBJECTIVES Various positive psychology interventions have been experimentally tested, but only few studies addressed the effects of such activities in participants aged 50 and above. METHOD We tested the impact of four self-administered positive psychology interventions in an online setting (i.e., gratitude visit, three good things, three funny things, and using signature strengths in a new w...

CONTEXT Unintended pregnancy is associated with risk behaviors and increased morbidity or mortality for mothers and infants, but a woman's feelings about pregnancy may be more predictive of risk and health outcomes than her intentions. METHODS A sample of 1,044 black women who were at increased risk were enrolled at prenatal care clinics in the District of Columbia in 2001-2003. Bivariate and...

This Article explores the optimal level of income redistribution by examining the potential welfare gains from redistributive tax and spending policies. Drawing on recent research on human happiness, this Article argues that while wealthy nations are generally happier than their poorer counterparts, neither national nor individual economic growth appear to have an appreciable impact on the subj...