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This book is the second in a series covering best practices in community quality-of-life (QOL) indicators. The first volume is a compilation of cases of best work in community indicators research. This volume builds on the goal of the series and includes eleven cases describing communities that have launched their own community indicators programs. Elements included are the history of the community indicators work within the target region, and the planning of community indicators.
What is complexity? What are the characteristics of a complex system? What does it mean to measure? How to develop an efficient tool for measuring socio-economic phenomena? What is synthesis? What are the main statistical tools for synthesis of multi-indicator systems? These are the research questions that are attempted to be answered in this book, the result of the author’s research work during his PhD. The book offers a conceptual and methodological analysis of the topic of synthesis of complex social phenomena, also proposing interesting applications to real cases. Winner of the Competition “Prize for PhD Thesis 2020” arranged by Sapienza University Press.
This volume connects aspects of personal health, overall well-being, and education to quality of life. It includes discussions of Galen’s and Harvey’s views of the movement of blood in human bodies, and differences in the research traditions of social indicators research and health-related quality of life research. It examines determinants of health and quality of life in a variety of populations, including the residents of the Bella Coola Valley of British Columbia, aboriginal residential school survivors in Canada, and diabetics versus non-diabetics. It describes relations between health survey and patients’ medical chart reviews, the health and quality of life of older people, and the difference between good health and a good life. Other topics explored are student quality of life, comparisons of the quality of life of students, aboriginal and unemployed people, the impact of education on happiness and well-being, and liberal education. In addition, the volume presents Einstein’s views of ethics and science, and unacknowledged authorship in scholarly publications. The final chapter gives a historical review of quality of life research in Canada over the past fifty years.
This is the first book tackling the topic of world suffering. It compiles in one place the ideas, perspectives, and findings of researchers from around the world who pioneered research-based understanding of human suffering. Some chapters use the paradigm of ‘quality of life’ to explore ways to enhance knowledge on suffering. Other chapters show how concepts and knowledge from suffering research can benefit studies on quality of life. By bringing together in one volume, ideas and research experience from the best minds and leading researchers in the fields of pain, suffering, poverty, deprivation, disability and quality of life (including well-being and happiness), this volume advances s...
In the last two centuries, agriculture has been an outstanding, if somewhat neglected, success story. Agriculture has fed an ever-growing population with an increasing variety of products at falling prices, even as it has released a growing number of workers to the rest of the economy. This book, a comprehensive history of world agriculture during this period, explains how these feats were accomplished. Feeding the World synthesizes two hundred years of agricultural development throughout the world, providing all essential data and extensive references to the literature. It covers, systematically, all the factors that have affected agricultural performance: environment, accumulation of inputs, technical progress, institutional change, commercialization, agricultural policies, and more. The last chapter discusses the contribution of agriculture to modern economic growth. The book is global in its reach and analysis, and represents a grand synthesis of an enormous topic.
The book explores, through a reflection on food, the complexity of the concept of well-being. It starts from the consideration that food is a fundamental element for human well-being, and for well-being of the planet as a whole. Not only does food guarantee the survival of human beings, it is also a cultural expression. With regard to the Italian socio-cultural context, the contributors explore how food relates to aspects such as history, tradition, new food styles, health, and the old and new technologies used to produce food. The studies in the book do not simply analyse indicators to illustrate the Italian situation in the "here and now". As part of the tradition of studies on social indicators, they provide valid and well-founded indications to contribute to an improvement in the quality of life for years to come. This work on the theme of food represents a very useful contribution to the general reflection on well-being and its statistical, sociological, and multidisciplinary study, due to the importance historically given to food in Italy and the socio-cultural implications of food in various life contexts.
This volume, edited by a political scientist and a practicing medical doctor, is organized into two parts: interpersonal and institutional trust. To gauge trust both interpersonal and institutional in 29 Asian societies, the AsiaBarometer survey, the best—and only—available such data source in the world was used. The survey, focusing on the quality of life in Asia, was carried out in the 2000s in 29 Asian societies (in East, Southeast, South, and Central Asia), and in the United States, Australia, and Russia for comparative analysis. Trust is a key intermediate variable linking an individual and a broader society. Yet systematically and scientifically assembled data have tended to be nar...
The aim of the Handbook of Social Indicators and Quality of Life Research is to create an overview of the field of Quality of Life (QOL) studies in the early years of the 21st century that can be updated and improved upon as the field evolves and the century unfolds. Social indicators are statistical time series “...used to monitor the social system, helping to identify changes and to guide intervention to alter the course of social change”. Examples include unemployment rates, crime rates, estimates of life expectancy, health status indices, school enrollment rates, average achievement scores, election voting rates, and measures of subjective well-being such as satisfaction with life-as...
The focus of this volume is on the further development of the Quality of Life Theory and the means to measure the concept. The volume summarizes Michalos’ fundamental assumptions about the nature of quality of life or human well-being and explains in detail the two variable theory of the quality of life. It gives an update of the journal Social Indicators Research after forty years, an explanation of the role of community indicators in connecting communities, and a critical review of the much publicized Stiglitz, Sen and Fitoussi report. It deals with the multiple discrepancies theory (MDT), the empirical theory designed to provide the foundation of the pragmatic theory of value. Other con...
Offering a thorough assessment of recent developments in the economic literature on happiness and quality of life, this major research Handbook astutely considers both methods of estimation and policy application. Luigino Bruni and Pier Luigi Porta’s refreshing, and constructively critical, approach emphasizes the subject’s integral impact on latter-day capitalism. Expert contributors critically present in-depth research on a wide range of topics including: • the history of the idea of quality of life and the impact of globalization • links between happiness and health • comparisons between hedonic and eudaimonic well-being • the relational and emotional side of human life, including subjective indicators of well-being • genetic and environmental contributions to life satisfaction • the impact of culture, fine arts and new media. Accessible and far-reaching, the Handbook of Research Methods and Applications in Happiness and Quality of Life will prove an invaluable resource for students and scholars of welfare and economics as well as practicing psychologists and researchers.