From National to Local: Measuring Well-Being at the Community Level

Abstract

In this chapter, we set out to do four things: (1) to describe the development of the Canadian Index of Wellbeing's (CIW) conceptual framework and measurement process, (2) to outline how the CIW framework guided the development of the Community Wellbeing Survey in collaboration with community partners, (3) to provide selected examples from survey results in three communities to illustrate how citizens' wellbeing is affected by selected perceptual and situational factors in community, and (4) to describe how the Community Wellbeing Survey has been used to initiate social change within communities where the survey has been conducted. We conclude the chapter with some considerations of the limitations and possibilities of the survey approach along with avenues for future research with communities interested in assessing wellbeing locally. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved)