What does it mean to be well?

The foundation focuses on how our global health frameworks measure “wellness” and how they break down this complex concept into manageable chunks to develop resilient health systems. To get a sense of what it is, we might observe how much effort and money is spent on wellbeing in our infrastructure systems. Another question for us is, what is it not? Our public health systems are designed to serve the most critical needs, of those most in need, to reclaim a sense of wellbeing. Each step has a very different journey through reason and logic.

Then, we searched for the larger concepts and frameworks within individual stories and connected them to the healing journey. Cycling from the macro to the micro, we look to the governance systems used to maintain best practices, integrate intuitive use, and monitor emotional impact, evolving through service design interventions. And so, our understanding of what it means to be well has become a process of learning and questioning.

From our work, here are 3 sources describing what being well is, for your consideration:

1. Sandro Galea’s (Dean, Boston Univ. School of Public Health; Healthier: Fifty Thoughts on the Foundations of Population Health, 2017, etc.) book, Well, examines this concept from a range of perspectives. His work crosses cultures and countries, which we found quite helpful when growing a broader understanding of what wellness represents in our conversations on health. He also publishes regular essays in a newsletter, The Healthiest Goldfish, and one that recently stood out as especially helpful is titled, On respecting individual autonomy, creating structures that allow all people to live as we choose to.
   “Human beings are contradictory—life is contradictory. We may not always like what this implies, but this is the reality of our existence, and the pursuit of health must always be rooted in what is human, what supports the living of rich, full lives in all their perplexities and contradictions.” You can find this, subscribe, and explore a full library of past essays here.

2. A video series by Elliot Greenebaum (Licensed Psychoanalyst) includes an interview with Psychotherapist Nancy McWilliams. “Nancy McWilliams teaches at Rutgers University’s Graduate School of Applied & Professional Psychology. She is the author of Psychoanalytic Diagnosis and is Associate Editor of the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual.” Her incredible wealth of knowledge and understanding is articulated in an accessible way throughout this 23-minute video, titled “What Is Mental Health?”, leaving you feeling more confident in what to recognize as a sense of wellbeing.
   “His work actually showed that in people who tested as psychologically healthy on a number of dimensions that they're strong on both ends, they're not in the middle, they can advocate for themselves when that's appropriate and they can subordinate their own needs to the needs of the community, or another person, or their child when that's required.” As well, she covers these themes in a few different languages of the profession and attributes the work of many leaders within the industry.

3. A resource for a Canadian perspective on what wellbeing means can be found through the Canadian Index of Wellbeing (CIW), “The CIW framework takes a systems approach and identifies key leverage points that have a positive impact on our wellbeing across several domains - community vitality, democratic engagement, education, environment, healthy populations, leisure and culture, living standards, and time use.” This is measured through surveys and integrated systems that reinforce its value across sectors and populations in Canada.

   1. An example of this was published in February 2021 by Hill Strategies, “Canadians’ Arts Participation, Health, and Well-Being. “The 53rd report in the Statistical Insights on the Arts series probes the relationships between 15 arts, culture, and heritage activities and four aspects of health and well-being.” “The analysis provides evidence of a connection between cultural activities and mental health. Attendees or participants in all 15 arts, culture, and heritage activities are more likely to report very good or excellent mental health than non-attendees or non-participants.”