The week in review

We have some very exciting news for you… the Wikiprogress Community Portal has been given a makeover. The new layout is easier to navigate through the media reviews, spotlights, papers, newsletters and special reviews. We have also added a new section on interactive web 2.0 apps. Have a look and please tell us what you think.

Wikiprogress Community Portal

In other news, another busy week has given us plenty to choose from for your selection of highlights from the week that was.

Gallup

The release of the Gallup 2010 Global Wellbeing Survey has caused quite a stir in the media, with news sources focusing on the impact of the findings at national levels. The article from the Global Times (below) picks apart how the media have reviewed the survey findings and in some cases, misinterpreted the data. Nevertheless, there are many good articles out there showing the impact this data has on the wellbeing of various societies.

Chinese uncertainties skews well-being survey(Global Times 25.04.2011)

Gallup poll finds Israel 7th-most thriving country (The Jerusalem Post 25.04.2011)

On child wellbeing

If you read the week in review last week you would have noticed I included an IDB blog on crowdsourcing and poverty. This is another interesting IDB blog and focuses on the role that ICT can play in education. The IDB calls for governments to take stronger leadership roles in developing national policies to incorporate ICT into education systems.

A Mashup on ICT/Education Policies and Plans in the LAC countries (IDB Blog 25.04.2011)

On human development

After hearing Jeni Klugman (Director of the Human Development Report Office) speak last year in Sydney on the 2010 Human Development Report (HDR), I have been eagerly following what she has to say about the HDR and human development in general. This article highlights the key innovations that were included in the 2010 HDR and addresses criticisms on both new and old HDR issues. Given that last year was the 20thanniversary of the HDR, it is an interesting article that looks at just how far they have come and what challenges they have faced along the way.

HDI 2010: New Controversies, Old Critiques (HDR News Release 27.04.2011)

On gender equality
This article looks at two Saudi women who attempted to register to vote in municipal elections. The movement, much like the article, is optomistic and determined. Nine million women in Saudi Arabia have been ruled out of the vote which is set to take place in September. 
Saudi elections - women seek vote (Reuters 26.04.2011)
See also the Wikigender article on  gender equality in Saudi Arabia

And something on happiness

Action for Happiness is still receiving a lot of media attention, both on the movement itself and the political implications of measuring wellbeing. This article looks at what Action for Happiness calls the ’10 Keys to Happier Living’.

Happiness is a Political Issue (Happy 21.04.2011)

And on that happy note, I hope you enjoyed my selection of highlights from the week that was. Be sure to tune in the same time next week.

Yours in progress,

Philippa Lysaght 

​

Health as a social dynamic

Richard Eckersley

A neglected attribute of population health is that it is an important dynamic in the functioning of societies. Typically, public-health reports express this role in terms of the direct and indirect economic costs of poor health (that is, the costs of health care and lost productivity), with some acknowledgement of the social costs to individuals, families and communities. But these effects are just one part of a bigger, more complex, picture.

Poor health, both physical and mental, affects people in many life roles – as students, workers, parents and citizens. These impacts are not only the result of clinically significant health problems (which, nonetheless, affect substantial segments of the population). High rates of illness, especially mental illness, also reflect public mood, morale and vitality. Poor population health weakens a society's confidence and resilience, and so its capacity to deal with the challenges of the modern world. And this, in turn, further impacts on population health.

This is not widely appreciated. A false dichotomy often characterises debate and discussion about national and international affairs. On the one hand, these matters are seen as shaped by large, external forces such as economic development, technological change, environmental degradation and resource depletion, and war and conflict. Population health may be affected by these forces, but health itself is not usually seen as a contributor to larger-scale social developments. The perspectives of economics, politics and the environment dominate the discourse. On the other hand, considerations of health focus on internal, psychological and physiological processes and personal attributes, circumstances, behaviours and experiences. The dominant frame of reference is the biomedical model of health as an attribute or property of individuals, as discussed above.

This separation is misleading. The reality is that change in both social and personal, external and internal, worlds is shaped by a complex interplay between them. Understanding this interplay is important to comprehending what is happening in both realms. In other words, human ‘subjectivity’ plays an important part in the functioning of social systems; it is what most distinguishes them from other, biophysical systems. Health is not just an individual illness that requires treatment, but also an issue having national, even global, causes and consequences.

Health is a way of better understanding humanity and how people should live. Just as someone who is unwell will be less able to function effectively and withstand adversity, so too will a less healthy population make a less resilient society. Population health may be an important factor in determining whether societies respond effectively to adversity – or in ways that make the situation worse. In particular, mental health and morale could have a critical bearing on how societies cope with climate change and other 21^st Century global threats.

Population health perspectives can make an important contribution to sustainable development and the quest for a high, equitable and enduring quality of life: they provide a means of integrating, balancing and reconciling different social priorities by allowing them to be measured against a common goal or benchmark: improving human health and wellbeing. Population health is, then, a key element of achieving a socially, economically and environmentally sustainable way of living - humanity’s greatest challenge.

This is an edited extract from:

Eckersley R. 2011. The science and politics of population health: giving health a greater role in public policy. WebmedCentral PUBLIC HEALTH 2011; 2(3):WMC001697

http://www.webmedcentral.com/article_view/1697

Richard’s work is available at: www.richardeckersley.com.au

The Week in Review

It has been another busy week for Wikiprogress and we have gathered an incredible amount of news articles and blog posts on progress. Here are a few highlights from the week that was. Be sure to check out the Community Portal for full coverage.

Nic Marks gives an interesting talk at TEDx Danubia on the Happiness Manifesto. Nic Marks is the founder for the Centre of Wellbeing at the New Economics Foundation (nef) and has given presentations around the world on measuring happiness. As always, he delivers an exciting and engaging presentation – and gives a mention to Wikiprogress! This is an absolute must see.

Emerging Women Green Economy Leaders Unite at Powershift 2011 (Earth Day Network 18.04.2011)

Today is World Earth Day, which has been celebrated on the 22^nd of April for over 40 years. World Earth day aims to motivate the worldwide environmental movement through education and public policy. Women have been associated with the environmental movement for a long time now, but this article reports on the roles that women play in the leadership of this movement.  A short and sweet article noting the role of gender equality in leadership is taking centre stage in the environmental movement. See more on Wikigender.

Beyond GDP April Newsletter

The most recent newsletter from ‘Beyond GDP’ gives an overview of highlights from the initiative and looks at who is adopting the motion to look beyond GDP in measuring national wellbeing. The newsletter provides insight into the focus of wellbeing in Germany, the UK and France.

The trouble with the economics of happiness (The Guardian 19.04.2011)

The media in the UK has been working overtime to cover the nation’s (relatively) newfound interest in measuring happiness. If you read the review last week you would have seen the vast amount of coverage given to the recently launched Action for Happiness movement. This article gives an interesting review of both sides of the story.

Crowdsourcing technologies are giving people a voice (IDB Blog 19.04.2011)

Crowdsourcing has been a buzzword for some time now – and it looks like it is here to stay. This is a great blog post from the IDB on how to use crowdsourcing to help tackle the needs of the poor by gathering information from those living in poverty.

These were the highlights from the week that was. Be sure to check in with us next week to find out what has been happening in the global progress movement.

Yours in progress, Philippa Lysaght

See the full Progress Media Review

Better health, not greater wealth, should be society’s goal

Richard Eckersley

The rise in life expectancy, which more than doubled globally last century, is a cornerstone of human development. While there are competing theories about what produced the health gains, they can be, broadly speaking, attributed to factors such as material advances, especially better nutrition; public-health interventions such as sanitation; social modernisation, including education and social welfare; and improved medical treatment and care.

Historically, then, medicine and other health professions have been part of a broad, progressive movement that has improved not only life expectancy and health, but quality of life more broadly. The connection was close; the early emphasis in public health was on how social conditions influenced health and how they might be improved.

Today the relationship has changed. Health professions are increasingly engaged in countering the growing harm to health of adverse social trends, at least in developed nations. At the same time, however, they have become part of the problem because of a scientific emphasis on, and political advocacy of, a biomedical model of health based on individual cases of disease and their associated risk factors and treatments at the expense of a social model of disease prevention and health promotion. This has contributed to a separation of population health from social conditions, to the detriment of both.

Most public-health initiatives focus on individual risk factors associated with physical health: smoking, diet, exercise, alcohol use. From a health perspective, this emphasis neglects the importance of mental health; from a prevention perspective, it under-estimates the importance of social and environmental determinants.

Furthermore, the research on social determinants focuses on socio-economic factors, notably inequality, to the neglect of cultural factors such as excessive materialism and individualism. Culture and mental health are closely linked; both concern what people think and feel. This is seen clearly in young people’s health, an important predictor of future population health. Contrary to longer historic trends and official perceptions, young people's health has arguably declined over recent generations in developed nations because of rising obesity and mental illness.

Acknowledging the importance of culture and mental health highlights the social significance of health in two ways: by casting doubt on orthodox thinking on human development and national progress, which places Western nations at the leading edge; and by showing health is an important social dynamic, a cause not just a consequence of how well society is faring because it affects people in all their roles – as citizens, workers, students and parents.

The dominant biomedical perspective suits business and government. It is in biomedicine that profits are to be made, not in social health. This model also limits the political significance of health to the politics of healthcare services. This policy focus is challenging enough as governments struggle with rising demand and costs. However, the challenge is easy compared with trying to reconcile emerging health-based social realities with existing wealth-based political priorities. Embedded in the biomedical model is a hidden ideology that defends and promotes the status quo.

The scientific and political responses to the situation might include more research on public and mental health, especially transdisciplinary approaches that integrate epidemiological, sociological, psychological and anthropological concepts and evidence. Similarly, with health services and programs, the share of the health budget allocated to public health and mental health should be increased.

The response also needs to go beyond the health system to embrace, for example, rethinking the role and purpose of education, and greater regulation and control of business, especially advertising and marketing, the dominant promoters of an unhealthy, hyper-consumer culture.

However, the most important application of this perspective may be in the contribution it can make to a much broader political and public debate about the lives people want to lead, the societies they want to live in, and the futures they want to create. That debate is intensifying, but health plays only a limited part in it.

A broad view of population health and wellbeing and their social drivers – socio-economic, cultural and environmental - challenges the legitimacy of the dominant worldview of material progress (which gives priority to economic growth and a rising standard of living), and supports the alternative, sustainable development (which seeks to balance social, environmental and economic priorities to achieve a high, equitable and lasting quality of life).

The contest between the two models, or narratives, of progress has been framed largely in economic and environmental terms, and the social dimension has been neglected. Population-health research can help to correct this distortion.

This is an edited extract from:

Eckersley R. 2011. The science and politics of population health: giving health a greater role in public policy. WebmedCentral PUBLIC HEALTH 2011; 2(3):WMC001697. http://www.webmedcentral.com/article_view/1697

The paper, and other papers, are available on Richard’s website:

www.richardeckersley.com.au .

The Week in Review

Welcome to the Wikiprogress week in review. It seems that every week we have more and more to report on. Here are the highlights from the (incredibly eventful and busy) week that was….

Action for Happiness

Action for Happiness (AFH) is a new self-proclaimed ‘mass-movement to help create a happier society’ in the UK. Launched on Tuesday, AFH was created by three key progress thinkers - Lord Richard Layard, Geoff Mulgan and Anthony Seldon. Since the launch, the website was overwhelmed with so many hits that it has been inaccessible for most of the week! See the Wikiprogress AFH Media Review with over 20 news items on Action for Happiness and see my favourite news article below.

Action for Happiness movement launches (BBC 12.04.2011)

And a great blog post by the new economics foundation (nef):

Think a happy thought (nef blog 14.04.2011)


Society at a Glance from the OECD was released on 12 April - key findings released feature a chapter on unpaid work including information from new OECD member countries (Chile, Estonia, Israel and Slovenia) as well as data from emerging countries.

World Health Organisation’s Bulletin: The Happiness Effect
Emerging from the worst economic crisis in decades, more governments than ever are measuring health and happiness as well as gross domestic product. But how will the study of well-being shape new policies? Read on.

The World Development Report

The World Bank had a brilliant launch of the 2011 WDR on Monday. The report focuses on conflict, security and development - analysing the negative impact cycles of violence have on different regions. It was released in a flurry of online activity, with the World Bank using various forms of multimedia to interact with a diverse audience and show the impact of the report. See the official website to download the report and the Wikiprogress WDR2011 Media Review for all related news items.

World Bank urges new focus on global development in fragile states (The Guardian 11.04.2011)

Equal Pay Day in the USA was on 12 April -  This date symbolises how far into 2011 women must work to earn what men earned in 2010. Read the Presidential Proclamation.

In other Gender News, the World Bank has announced that the 2012 WDR will focus on gender equality and development.  We can only imagine what sort of interactive technology the World Bank will use to release this one next year! See the link below for a sneak peak.

World Bank World Development Report 2012 Gender Equality and Development

I hope you enjoyed the week in review. Be sure to tune in the same time next week for another riveting read on the week that was.

Until then, yours in progress 


Philippa Lysaght


For more, please see our constantly-updated Wikiprogress Media Review

Gender equality – a key factor for progress in society

Development objectives like reducing poverty and hunger, improving children’s access to education and health, reducing child and maternal mortality and combating diseases like HIV/AIDS are closely linked to gender equality.

Most development goals can be achieved when serious efforts are made to increase women’s education, employment, income and intra-household decision making power. Gender equality thus emerges as key factor for progress in society.

This is valid not only for developing countries, but also for high income countries. Even in developed countries, the majority of women is still disadvantaged in terms of wage income and career development in comparison to men. Many women still face barriers to combine work and family life. This results in a reduced labour market participation, which leads to reduced income and insufficient social protection for many women.

Gender inequalities are largest, however, in developing countries, as women suffer more than men from malnutrition, diseases, illiteracy and the risk of social and political instability. Genital mutilation, female infanticide and sex-selective abortion, early marriage, limited freedom of movement and freedom of dress, lack of property and lack of access to land and inheritance are par for the course for many women in poor countries.

Enhancing education and career perspectives for women is crucial to increase women’s economic empowerment in all regions of the world. Against the background of a feminization of poverty, it is crucial to significantly increase the proportion of women in decent labour. Only work that provides women with rights, adequate income, career opportunities and social protection promotes their economic power.

Women’s income, in turn, also increases their bargaining power within the household, which is proven to increase investments in the education and health of children. By this means, women’s empowerment turns out to be not only fruitful for women themselves, but for all of society.

Angela Luci
http://www.genderdebate.com/
http://angela_luci.site.ined.fr/