Prof Paul Behrens (Oxford), Reapra Senior Research Fellow at the Wellbeing Research Centre, shared findings on the implications of climate change on wellbeing at the latest of the Wellbeing Research Centre’s Seminar Series.
His research includes an overview of major integrated environment–society–economy (ESE) models, and how they all fail to account for human wellbeing.
Watch the full presentation on the Centre’s YouTube channel.
Annegeke Jansen (Leiden), Reapra Research Associate at the Wellbeing Research Centre, shared findings on alternatives to GDP at the latest of the Wellbeing Research Centre’s Seminar Series.
Her research includes a high-level synthesis of multiple Beyond GDP measures, accounting for sustainable development and other important dimensions not captured within Gross Domestic Product figures.
Watch the full presentation on the Centre’s YouTube channel.
Sam Harris speaks with Michael Plant about the philosophy of happiness and effective altruism. They discuss the nature of well-being, Nozick’s “Experience Machine” thought experiment, the validity of self-reported happiness data, the conflict between the experiencing self and the remembering self, Derek Parfit’s “Repugnant Conclusion,” the disconnect between moral intentions and consequences, why treating depression is more impactful than cash, the massive disparities in charitable impact, the potential effects of AI on human flourishing, the meaning crisis in a post-work future, and other topics.
Climate change is already shaping our wellbeing. It affects mental health, spreads infectious diseases, disrupts work, damages food supplies and forces families to leave their homes because of conflict, hunger or flooding.
Wellbeing refers to everything that enables people to live healthy, safe and meaningful lives. It includes physical and mental health, access to food, clean water, hygiene and income, as well as work, leisure, culture and education.
It also involves personal safety, freedoms, trust in institutions and how people feel about their own lives. Environmental quality, biodiversity and the degree of inequality in society are part of wellbeing too. Climate change touches every one of these areas.
Climate change has broad and deep impacts on people’s wellbeing; yet, these dynamics are largely excluded from integrated environment–society–economy (ESE) models. In this Review, we provide an overview of climate change–wellbeing impact pathways and explore which of these pathways have been quantified or modelled, or both. We assessed literature reviews and meta-analyses to describe how climate change affects specific wellbeing outcomes and which of these relationships are robust and amenable to parametrisation. We also conducted a review of 18 models that include one or more wellbeing impacts of climate change. Generally, more quantified pathways are available in the literature than those currently incorporated in ESE models. Temperature-related mortality, food security, and GDP are well represented in quantitative literature and to some extent in ESE models, whereas the impacts of climate change on infectious diseases; respiratory, cardiovascular, and neurological outcomes; mental health; adverse birth outcomes; occupational health and labour productivity; conflict; migration; poverty; air quality; and biodiversity loss have been quantified in the literature but are largely absent in ESE models. These relationships present promising steps towards a next generation of ESE models that could include more sophisticated interactions between environmental impacts and wellbeing.
Adolescence, spanning ages 10–24, is a period of significant transition marked by changes such as puberty, brain development, and shifts in social norms and relationships. As a malleable developmental context, adolescence presents an opportunity for early intervention for improving wellbeing over the life course. Taking a socioecological approach, this chapter outlines the integral role that schools can play in improving adolescent wellbeing as part of adolescents’ environment. This chapter draws on empirical literature as well as case studies of existing health and education policies around the world. In doing so, it considers the role and responsibility of schools for improving wellbeing outcomes; how different aspects of school impact wellbeing differently; and provide policy-based recommendations for how schools can most effectively promote adolescent wellbeing.
Background Educational mobility is considered a key driver of population health. While prior studies suggest that intergenerational equality of opportunity may be linked to mortality, most evidence comes from high-income countries. Little is known about whether these associations apply globally.
Objective This study assesses the relationship between intergenerational educational mobility and all-cause mortality across a global sample of countries.
Methods We combine country-level data from the WHO Mortality Database and the World Bank’s Global Database on Intergenerational Mobility, covering five birth cohorts across 148 countries. Using multilevel random effects models, we estimate associations between four dimensions of educational mobility (upward, downward, stagnant, and correlation-based) and age- and sex-adjusted all-cause mortality, controlling for national indicators of education, income, inequality, health spending, unemployment, and political freedoms.
Results Higher upward educational mobility and lower stagnant mobility are significantly associated with reduced all-cause mortality. In fully adjusted models, a one standard deviation greater measure of upward mobility is associated with a reduction of 29.1 deaths per 100,000 population, while a one standard deviation lower stagnation measure is associated with a reduction of 27.3 deaths per 100,000 population. These patterns are consistent across high- and low-income countries.
Conclusions Our findings suggest that promoting educational equality of opportunity may reduce mortality and improve public health worldwide. Strengthening social mobility, especially in settings with persistent educational inequality, can be an effective policy lever for reducing health disparities and supporting healthier populations.
This paper studies “national worry.” It finds that in the West European nations the intensity of worry seems to be inversely linked to the level of social spending in a country. We also demonstrate that the proportion of citizens in Western Europe who report extreme-worry levels has risen steadily over the last two decades. The United Kingdom experienced the fastest increase in worry. Our country-panel estimates point to a potentially central role for the little-discussed ex ante psychological value of the welfare state (i.e., the benefit to the whole population, and not just the mental-wellbeing gains going ex post to the smaller number of citizens who actually draw upon welfare-state help). Worry levels move with other economic variables, including the unemployment rate, and we provide some of the first estimates of the patterns of worry across different kinds of individuals. Finally, the analysis is extended to the set of OECD countries. We believe that much needs to be understood about the troubling rise of worry in modern society.
An interdisciplinary team from the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford, in partnership with the IB, have published a set of resources on five important wellbeing themes for students, teachers, and schools. The topics covered include:
Researchers examined hundreds of peer-reviewed studies of wellbeing support in schools in order to identify some of the most promising evidence-based interventions.
While there is no one-size-fits-all approach to improving wellbeing in schools, the team have highlighted interventions which have been shown to boost levels of wellbeing in specific circumstances. They range from large-scale interventions trialled across countries, to smaller actions rolled out at a more local scale.
Resources are available both in a summary format (in English, French, and Spanish) and, for readers seeking further insight, as a number of detailed literature reviews (in English). An overview poster with key findings from all five reports, suitable for display in the classroom, is also available to download in English, French, and Spanish.
The mini reports serve as companion resources to two Wellbeing Research Centre reports previously published in partnership with the IB: Wellbeing in Education in Childhood and Adolescence (2022), and Wellbeing for Schoolteachers (2024).
Dr Laura Taylor, Deputy Director of the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford, said: “Each child and each school environment is unique, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to improving wellbeing in schools. We highlight how school leaders can use research evidence, alongside crucial elements like staff and student voice activities, in order to support the wellbeing of their school community.”
All five research reports, plus further resources for schools, can be found at wellbeing.hmc.ox.ac.uk/schools.
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