Well-Being Measurement and Policy in IrelandCatalysing Collective Intelligence

Dr. Michael HoganClaire Mc Moreland

Dr. Jane Walsh

Whitaker Institute for Innovation and Societal ChangeNUI, Galway, Ireland

          

             

          

           

Indicators and collective decisions

The indicators a society chooses to report to itself about itself are surprisingly powerful. They reflect the collective values and inform collective decisions. A nation that keeps a watchful eye on its salmon runs or the safety of its streets makes different decisions than does a nation that is only paying attention to its GNP.

Donella Meadows

“Conceptualising progress in this way clarifies that, in order to measure whether Australia isprogressing, it is important to understand the broad aspirations Australians hold for their country.To this end, the consultation has focused on identifying those aspirations Australians hold fornational progress in the four broad areas (i.e. society, economy, environment and governance)”.

Aspirations and measurement goals – citizen consultations

Freedom, empowerment, democracy and wellbeing

Deeper than the utilitarian view of freedom from interference when making choices is an older republican suppressed view of freedom -- freedom as non-domination.

The role of the state is to provide security and infrastructure, and the role of citizens is to share equally in controlling the state – legislation, regulation, and taxation will not be dominating; it willbe an authorized form of interference.

This requires nonelectoral institutions, or citizen assemblies, of a regulatory and contestatory kind that guard against majoritarian oppression of minorities, the exploitation of public office for the advantage of incumbents, and the usurpation of state power for purposes of advancing the special interests of the rich and powerful.

Empowerment, democracy and wellbeing

• Measures of freedom to control your life explain as much of the variance in wellbeing across countries as is explained by GDP per head.

• Cross-national analyses similarly suggest that areas and cities with greater decentralisation, and particularly fiscal decentralisation, are associated with significantly higher life satisfaction.

• The ten countries that most improved governance quality between 2005–2012 increased life satisfaction by the equivalent of a 40 percent increase in per-capita incomes

• “The evidence reinforces the case for devolution and local empowerment, particularly for fiscal decentralisation, and encourages alternative forms of consultation” (p. 70).

Well-being Matters:A Social Report for Ireland

The National Economic and Social Council (2009)

“…a person’s well-being relates to their physical, social and mental state. It requires that basic needs are met, that people have a sense of purpose, that they feel able to achieve important goals, to participate in society and to live the lives they value and have reason to value.”

Well-being Matters:A Social Report for Ireland

People’s well-being is enhanced by conditions that include:

1. Financial and personal security2. Meaningful and rewarding work 3. Supportive personal relationships 4. Strong and inclusive communities5. Good health6. A healthy and attractive environment7. Values of democracy and social justice

Wellbeing measure design time lines and the importance of citizen consultation:

Steven Hick’s summary of the UK experience

The Canadian Wellbeing Index timeline...

Canadian Index of Wellbeing Conceptual Framework

8 Domains

CIW Composite Index64 indicators consolidated into a single CIW average

8 Indicatorsin each domain

LIVING STANDARDS

n Ratio of top to bottom quintile of economic families, after tax

p After tax median income of economic families (2010$)

n Percentage of persons in low income

p Scaled value of Centre for the Study of Living Standards (CSLC) economic security

n Percentage of labour force with long-term unemployment

p Percentage of labour force employed

p Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) index of employment quality

n Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) housing affordability index

COMMUNITY VITALITY

P Percentage reporting participation in organized activities

p Percentage with six (6) or more close friends

n Property crime rate per 100,000 population

n Violent crime rate per 100,000 population

p Percentage who feel safe walking alone after dark

p Percentage who feel most/ many people can be trusted

p Percentage who provide unpaid help to others on their own

p Percentage reporting very or somewhat strong sense of belonging to community

HEALTHY POPULATIONS

P Percentage self-rated health as excellent or very good

n Percentage with self-reported diabetes

p Life expectancy at birth, in years

n Percentage of daily or occasional smokers among teens 12 to 19 years old

n Percentage with probable depression

p Percentage rating patient health services as excellent or good

p Percentage of adults getting influenza immunization

p Average remaining years expected to be lived in good health, average Health Adjusted Life Expectancy (HALE) 15+

DEMOCRATIC ENGAGEMENT

P Percentage of voter turnout at federal elections

n Percentage that are not interested in politics at all

p Percentage that strongly agree it is every citizen’s duty to vote in federal elections

p Percentage reporting being very/ fairly satisfied with the way democracy works in Canada

p Percentage with a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in federal parliament

p Ratio of registered to eligible voters

p Percentage of women in Parliament

p Net official development aid as a percentage of Gross National Income

LEISURE AND CULTURE

p Average percent of time spent on the previous day in social leisure activities

p Average percent of time spent on the previous day in arts and culture activities

p Average number of hours in the past year volunteering for culture and recreation organisations

p Average monthly frequency of participation in physical activity over 15 minutes

p Average attendance per performance in past year at all performing arts

p Average visitation per site in past year to all national parks and national historic sites

p Average number of nights away per trip in the past year on vacations over 80km from home

p Expenditures in past year on culture and recreation as percent of total expenditures

EDUCATION

p Ratio of childcare spaces to children aged 0 to 5 years of age

p Percentage of children doing well on five developmental domains

n Ratio of students to educators in public schools

p Average of five social and emotional competence scores for 12 to 13 year olds

p Basic knowledge and skills index for 13 to 15 year olds

n Percentage of Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) scores explained by socio-economic background

p Percentage of 20 to 24 year olds in population completing high school

p Percentage of 25 to 65 year olds with a university degree

TIME USE

n Percentage of labour force participants working more than 50 hours per week

n Percentage of 20 to 64 year olds reporting high levels of time pressure

n Percentage of 20 to 64 year olds giving unpaid care to seniors

p Percentage of 65 years and older reporting daily active leisure activities

p Percentage of 65 years and older reporting annual formal volunteering activities

n Mean workday commute time for individuals working for pay

p Percentage of individuals working for pay with flexible work hours

p Percentage of 3 to 5 year olds read to daily by parents

ENVIRONMENT

n Ground level ozone (population weighted in parts per billion)

n Absolute greenhouse gas emissions (megatons of carbon dioxide per year)

p Primary energy production (petajoules)

p Water yield in southern Canada (cubic kilometres)

n Ecological footprint

p Viable Metal Reserves Index

p Canadian Living Planet Index

p Marine Trophic Index

Canadian Index of Well-being

Well-Being in Ireland ConferenceJune 8, 2012, NUI, Galway

Conference Objectives

• Establish a new national network of scientists, community organizations, policy-makers, and other key stakeholders to discuss the latest advances in well-being research and policy

• Introduce conference participants to Interactive Management, a collaborative systems design methodology

• Foster a dialogue on barriers to well-being in Ireland and develop a systems model describing how barriers to well-being in Ireland are related

• Use Interactive Management systems design methods to agree a set of high-impact, feasible options to overcome barriers to well-being in Ireland.

John N. Warfield (1925-2009)

Relevant Books• 1976. Societal Systems: Planning, Policy, and Complexity. New York: Wiley Interscience. • 1990. A Science of Generic Design: Managing Complexity through Systems Design. Ames, IA: Iowa

State University Press 1994. • 1994. A Handbook of Interactive Management. With Roxana Cárdenas, Ames, IA: Iowa State

University Press 1994. • 2002. Understanding Complexity: Thought and Behavior. AJAR Publishing Company, Palm Harbor, FL. • 2003. The Mathematics of Structure. AJAR Publishing Company, Palm Harbor, FL. • 2006. An introduction to systems science. Singapore: World Scientific.

Warfield, past president of the society for systems science, developed Interactive Management

When a group works to resolve a shared problem they need to build consensus models that facilitate collective action

Tools

MathematicsGraphicsWords

Mathematics of logic and structure:

eg., formal logic, graph theory, matrices

Mathematics of content:e.g., differential equations,

integral equations used to describe

phenomena in physics, chemistry, biology,

psychology, sociology.

Step 1: Idea Generation in response to a trigger question (e.g., what are barriers to well-being in Ireland?)

Steps in the Interactive Management process

Step 2: Recording , posting, clarifying and categorising ideas on display walls

(3) Selection and ranking of sub-problems in the problem field

Statement Number of Sum of ranks Categoryvotes

2. Lack of clear incentives to 4 16 823. Clashing personalities and 4 10 412. Challenge of identifying l 3 8 64. Lack of identity for the new 3 9 217. Uncertainty regarding new 2 7 225. Lack of reward systems to 2 6 89. Difficulty in defining clust 2 6 124. Unrecognized value of soci 2 7 25. Specialization (mitigates ag 2 6 57. Lack of clear language that 2 6 519. Overdependence on "bureauc 2 4 622. Some individuals want to w 2 2 43. Lack of motivation or intere 2 7 713. Lack of opportunity for fo 1 3 326. Turf issues: individuals w 1 5 432. Someone needs to commit si 1 4 620. Divergence in methods, pro 1 5 528. Not really an existing, re 1 4 333. Institute based on what we 1 2 614. Lack of information/certai 1 1 515. Lack of translation of res 1 2 8-----------------------------------------------------------------------

(4) Structuring the interdependence between problems in the problem field

From voting, to matrix, to structure

Figure C-1 shows a Boolean matrix (i.e., a matrix, all of whose entries are either 0 or 1). Thematrix rows and columns are identically indexed, the index numbers ranging from 1 to 15. Such amatrix might represent the information provided to the computer by a group of participants, inwhich e.g., 15 problems are interrelated (or possibly 15 options, or 15 events, etc.). The entries inthe matrix could represent a mix of the answers to questions posed to the participants and theanswers inferred by the computer (using a property of relationships known as transitivity).

Well-Being in Ireland ConferenceJune 8, 2012, NUI, Galway

Overcoming Barriers to Well-Being in Ireland: Workshop Report Lack of

trust/dissatisfaction with the system, government, and decision-makers in general (I)

A national sense of gloom due to emphasis on austerity (I)

Feelings of helplessness in the face of current global economic/ environmental conditions (B)

Stigma associated with mental health difficulties such as depression, anxiety and stress (E)

Corrosion of work-life balance, with people working longer/harder and taking the stresses of work home with them (E)

Lack of an effort to galvanise collective action around the issue of promoting well-being (F)Lack of understanding as

regards the nature of well-being and how to measurement it (H)

Maladaptive coping mechanisms (e.g. avoidance of problems or use of alcohol or drugs to deal with problems) (B)

Limited number of government initiatives designed to promote social capital (e.g., social cohesion and trust) (A)

Limited understanding of the factors that influence and increase well-being (H)

Lack of space for dialogue on holistic views of well-being (G)

Lack of funding for community well-being initiatives (D)

No national measurement of well-being (A)

Absence of holistic approaches to health-care (E)

Lack of education about the importance of well-being in schools and universities (G)

No charismatic champion or leader to advance the well-being of the nation (F)

(5) Generate options as a response to the structural problems

Multiple actors work in multiple directions

Many butterflies flap their wellbeing wings...

• Conduct research to establish the factors that individuals and communities consider important for well-being• Encourage community and voluntary organisations to showcase initiatives of best practice that are currently working well• Change aspects of the education system to incorporate understanding of well-being• Organise a “National Day of Well-being” to raise awareness• Set up well-being “think-tank” similar to the New Economics Foundation (NEF) in Ireland• Teach happiness skills e.g. CBT (Penn Resiliency Programme), mindfulness, loving-kindness meditation; providing a basis for secular flourishing

and meaning• Promote values and promote the process over the product• Encourage active lifestyles by developing cycle paths, open-air gyms etc• Promote resilience through education about emotions and coping strategies• Reduce/ban advertising of ‘junk’ food, especially that which targets children, and advocate healthier eating/lifestyle advertising campaigns• Use the media to challenge stigma around mental illness.• Educate parents about how to regulate their children’s use of (social) media• “Positive lives, good lives”: Encourage media focus on “good” celebrities e.g. Nelson Mandela, Nobel Laureates , and discuss their value and

impact on society• Implement mental health campaigns to highlight and remove stigma around issues like depression, anxiety, alcoholism by having positive role

models participate in these campaigns e.g. sports stars• Reduce inefficiencies in the HSE and creatively redesign services• Implement an overarching resource allocation model to target resources at areas of greatest need• Develop a ‘code of practice’ for promotion of well-being in voluntary organisations• Pooling of funding between groups for shared resources related to well-being• Lack of funding: encourage sharing of existing resources between groups involved in promoting well-being• Develop education/programmes for parents/young people pm eating healthily on a budget/recipes. This could be school-based and done by

volunteers.• ‘Cost associated with healthy lifestyle’- often don’t need to pay money to engage in healthy behaviours eg. Sports team/running vs gym, grow

veg or shop in market vs organic food store• Etc.

Continue the dialogue and transform the system

Read Conference Report Here

Wellbeing : Designing Measures and Implementing Policies, June 2013

Trigger question for Design Conference: In the context of developing a new national wellbeing

index for Ireland, what are the strategic objectives that should guide our efforts to enhance the wellbeing of the people of Ireland over the coming decade?

Top Ranked Strategic Objectives across Ten Wellbeing domains

Read Full Conference Report Here

How Strategic Objectives are seen by conference participants to be related in an ‘enhancement structure’

Design Challenges Moving Forward

Consulting with Citizens in the Design of Wellbeing Measures

• Two primary research questions:1. In developing an Irish National Wellbeing Index, what do citizens consider important goals for improving wellbeing?2. Do goals differ across age cohorts?

• Design: Nine citizen group consulted – 3 young, 3 working adult and 3 older adult groups.

Claire Mc Moreland

Health

Infra

struc

ture

Men

tal H

ealth

Health

& W

ellbe

ing P

romoti

on

Equal

acce

ss to

Serv

ices

Mon

etary

equa

lity

Social

equa

lity

Transp

arenc

y

Accou

ntabil

ity &

Mon

itorin

g

Faith &

Con

fiden

ce

Restru

cturin

g

Educa

tiona

l Inf

rastru

cture

Pressu

res

Curric

ulum F

ocus

Outlets

Inclu

sion &

Invo

lvemen

t

Empowerm

ent

Physic

al Acti

vity

Inter

gene

ration

al Exc

hang

e

Person

al Fina

nce

Accep

ting &

Pro

moting

Dive

rsity

Law &

Ord

er

Fundin

g of S

ervice

s

Promoti

ng Ir

eland

Apprec

iation

of th

e loc

al Env

ironm

ent

Care of

the e

lderly

Inde

pend

ence

Iden

tity &

Pers

pecti

ve T

aking

Transp

ort

Urban

Des

ign

Employm

ent

Loneli

ness

, Iso

lation

and E

xclus

ion

Civic e

ngag

emen

t of m

argina

lised

grou

ps

Resea

rch

Organ

isatio

nal W

ellbe

ing

Irish

Drin

king C

ultur

e

Sustai

nabil

ity

Provis

ions f

or H

omele

ss pe

ople

Religio

n and

Spir

ituali

ty

Acces

s to i

nfor

mation

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

Older adult Working Age Teenage

Category

Vot

es

Aggregate votes across 39 categories of strategic objectives, for older adults, working age groups, and teenage groups, respectively.

Whole group influence model of high-level category themes

Theme 5Community

Tot Avg Inf: -7.17

Community: Outlets Civic Engagement of Marginalised GroupsCommunity: EmpowermentIntergenerational ExchangeCommunity: Inclusion & InvolvementUrban Design

Theme 4Personal FactorsTot Avg Inf: 2.89

Identity & Perspective TakingPhysical ActivityLoneliness, Isolation & ExclusionPersonal Finance Health: Mental Health Health & Wellbeing PromotionAccepting & Promoting Diversity

Theme 3Education & Culture

Tot Avg Inf: 18.92

Educational InfrastructureEducation: Curriculum Focus Ireland: Appreciation of the local environment Irish Drinking Culture Ireland: Promoting Ireland

Theme 2Social Factors

Tot Avg Inf: 24.91

Caring for the ElderlyElderly: Independence EqualityEmployment Organisational WellbeingProvisions for homeless people

Theme 1Governance & Infrastructure

Tot AvgInf: 67.49

Health: ServicesGovernance: RestructuringGovernance: Accountability & MonitoringGovernance: TransparencyHealth Infrastructure Law & OrderFunding of Services TransportSustainability

Moving forward

• International case studies suggest that empowering citizens to identify values, goals, and preferences and design and implement wellbeing policies and programmes is hugely important.

• What indicators can help us to best track performance in relation to goals? Citizen groups and expert round tables need to work together.

• What indicators do we currently have available? What do we need to add? Consult with expert stakeholders across all relevant government departments.

• How best to distribute measurement demands across the nation? Import additional social science intelligence in the design process.

• How best to pool data and use data to inform policy, practice, and collective action on the ground? Empower local groups.

The People’s Participation Network• The work of the Health and Wellbeing Cluster

on Collective Intelligence and Wellbeing was recently published as part of a major Government Report on Citizen Engagement with Local Government.

• The report of the working group on citizen engagement with local government recommends that a People’s Participation Network (PPN) be established in every Local Authority area in Ireland to ensure extensive input by citizens into the decision-making process at local government level.

• Engagement of this nature has been provided for under the Local Government Reform Act 2014 in Ireland.

Think global, act localThe Galway Healthy Cities Project

Overcoming Barriers to Wellbeing in Galway CityGalway Healthy Cities 2014

• A total 149 barriers to wellbeing were organised into 12 categories

• A total of 254 options to overcome barriers to wellbeing

• Synergist projects tacking leadership, community engagement, and awareness barriers

• Systems logic informing project design – empowering stakeholders

Thank you!

Questions?