The 2011 Gallup Wellbeing Forum Speaker Topics and Abstracts:

Thursday, November 3

Wellbeing and the Great Recession

Trust in Public Institutions over the Business Cycle -- Betsey Stevenson, Ph.D.
Trust in public institutions has declined over recent years. Trust in Congress has been declining for decades, but has declined again sharply, and it is currently at an historic low. Banks, however, were about as trusted in the early 2000s as in the 1980s, but the public's trust in banks has declined sharply in recent years, particularly during the global financial crisis. These data also point to longer-run declines in trust of the Supreme Court, big business, and newspapers, and in each case, this decline hastened over recent years. Cross-country comparisons reveal a clear legacy of the Great Recession, and those countries whose unemployment grew the most suffered the biggest loss in confidence in institutions, particularly in trust in government and the financial sector.

The Financial Crisis and Wellbeing in America -- Angus Deaton, Ph.D.
The financial crisis and the great recession that followed affected the employment, income, and wealth of most Americans. Dr. Deaton uses data from the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index to track the consequences for life evaluation and for emotional experiences of Americans over the crisis, as well as to assess how wellbeing measures performed over this period of great economic turbulence. These measures have great and proven advantages for comparing outcomes over different people or groups of people, but they are not necessarily well-suited to tracking average wellbeing over time; even very large changes in unemployment and averages incomes have small and barely detectable effects on average wellbeing.

The Coming Job War -- Jim Clifton
The coming world war is an all-out global war for good jobs. As of 2008, the war for good jobs has trumped all other leadership activities because it's been the cause and the effect of everything else that countries have experienced. This will become even more real in the future as global competition intensifies. If countries fail at creating jobs, their societies will fall apart. Countries, and more specifically cities, will experience suffering, instability, chaos, and eventually revolution. This is the new world that leaders will confront.

Friday, November 4

Wellbeing and the World

Going for Gold: The Happiness Hit of the 2012 Olympics -- Paul Dolan, Ph.D.
Dr. Dolan will report on some preliminary findings from the first round of data from a study that is looking at the intangible benefits of the 2012 Olympic Games in London, Paris, and Berlin.

Wellbeing and Work

Unemployment and Subjective Wellbeing -- Richard Lucas, Ph.D.
Past research has shown surprisingly small associations between subjective wellbeing and objective life circumstances. These small effect sizes, combined with the stability and heritability of wellbeing and the moderate to strong correlations with personality traits, have led some to suggest that life circumstances do not play much of a role in determining subjective wellbeing. However, more recent studies have used large-scale panel studies to assess the effect of changes in life circumstances on subjective wellbeing, and these studies suggest that some factors are indeed associated with lasting changes. Unemployment is one of these factors, and evidence from multiple national panel studies regarding the links between unemployment and wellbeing will be discussed.

Wellbeing in the Workplace -- Jim Harter, Ph.D.
Organizations may hold the greatest immediate potential for impacting the health, energy, and productivity of the world's citizens. What is the role of the workplace in impacting the overall wellbeing of its employees? Harter will review recent Gallup research on the relationship between employee engagement, wellbeing, and a number of outcomes important to organizations -- and what some organizations are doing to create change.

Wellbeing and Education

Wellbeing in Higher Education: Preliminary Findings from the Gallup Campus Wellbeing Consortium -- Tim Hodges, Ph.D., and the Campus Wellbeing Consortium
The Gallup Campus Wellbeing Consortium works to create a new discussion about the wellbeing of people who learn and work at colleges and universities. Campus leaders will present highlights from baseline data collected at three institutions of higher education. The presenters will also discuss longitudinal research programs focused on enhancing career, social, financial, physical, and community wellbeing.

Wellbeing and Communities

Wellbeing and Change in Communities -- David Crockett
In 1969, Chattanooga, Tennessee was declared the most polluted city in America on the Walter Cronkite news broadcast. Respiratory illnesses were eight times the national average. Prior to that time, industrial cities like Chattanooga, Cleveland, Pittsburgh and others thought that was necessary for "prosperity" and the economy was the primary definition of "wellbeing". Follow the journey of Chattanooga through cleaning it's air, restoring it's downtown and riverfront, addressing social and health issues, building a green economy and winning national and international awards for sustainability up to today when it is embarking on a 14 county 3 state planning process for a sustainable and resilient region and creating an Institute for Community Wellbeing at the University of Tennessee Chattanooga. Chattanooga hasn't found the magic formula for getting everyone to agree on a path to wellbeing and sustainability, but there are valuable lessons to be learned from its journey so far. David Crockett has been a part of that journey and will share highlights through pictures and story.

Wellbeing: The Community and the Employer -- James E. Pope, M.D.
Dr. Pope with Healthways will discuss the application of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index to key market segments, such as government, employers and health providers. He will describe how the information and data can be used to facilitate individual behavioral change as well as community transformation. The dynamic use of data and research will be discussed from the perspective of business, policy, cost, and behavior change.

Unleashing the Power of Data for Improved Health and Wellbeing -- Aneesh Chopra
Abstract coming soon.

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