happiness are intricately interlinked, as noted by Natalia Kosheleva, a member of the ASPPE Board and a consultant specializing in monitoring and evaluating socially oriented programs and projects.
According to the expert, these approaches can be categorized into three major groups, distinguished by their impact scale:
1. National/Territorial
Programs and policies aiming to enhance the quality of life, well-being, and happiness of people within a specific country or territory.
2. Organization-Specific
Programs or projects whose objective is to promote the quality of life, well-being, and happiness of individuals within a given organization.
3. Individual
The goal of programs and policies is to ensure the quality of life, well-being, and happiness of specific individuals.
The national/territorial approach can be illustrated by Bhutan, where the Gross National Happiness Index encompasses 9 spheres of human life:
• Psychological well-being;
• Health;
• Time utilization (e.g., adequate sleep is considered an important part of well-being);
• Education;
• Cultural diversity and sustainability;
• Quality management;
• Quality of life in local communities;
• Ecological diversity;
• Standard of living.
The survey questionnaire for the Gross National Happiness Index comprises 249 questions. For instance, in the Psychological Well-Being section, residents of the kingdom are asked to identify the 6–7 most important factors and elements that contribute to their happiness, rate the quality of their life on a scale of 0 to 10, and express how much pleasure they derive from it.
Which units can we measure well-being in? The Happiness Research Institute suggests a unit of measurement known as WALY (Wellbeing Adjusted Life Years) — life years adjusted based on the subjective level of well-being. This approach originates from the field of medicine, where health is measured in QALYs (Quality Adjusted Life Years) and DALYs (Disability Adjusted Life Years).
In essence, WALY is akin to a kilowatt-hour: if we have an electrical device with a power of one kilowatt, it consumes one kilowatt-hour of electricity in an hour of continuous operation. When calculating WALY, subjective well-being ratings on a scale of 0 to 10 are used as “power,” where 10 signifies complete life satisfaction. If a person is completely satisfied with their life for a year, the well-being “consumed” amounts to one WALY, Natalia Kosheleva explains.
Researchers also strive to calculate well-being losses and gains resulting from various factors and policies. Moreover, WALY enables the measurement of the Happiness Return on Investment (HROI).
According to Natalia Kosheleva, there is a significant development in the assessment of how projects impact individuals’ subjective well-being. For example, substantial work in this direction has been carried out in the United Kingdom. There is a center dedicated to evidence-based approaches in projects aimed at enhancing well-being. Since 2011, the annual population survey features four questions related to personal well-being. Respondents are asked to rate their current life satisfaction on a scale of 1 to 10, assess the significance of their life pursuits, reflect on their happiness the previous day, and indicate their level of anxiety during the same period. [21]
Approaches to assessing the quality of life, well-being, and happiness are interlinked. They can be categorized into three groups, based by their impact scale.
In the UK, creative approaches to measuring well-being have also emerged. Convinced that the purpose of exhibitions includes influencing people’s emotional and psychological states, museums have particularly excelled in this area. To assess this impact, all visitors are invited to select a leaf of a specific color at the entrance to the exhibition and attach it to a tree. Following a color-coded system, a red leaf signifies “I feel good and prosperous,” a yellow leaf indicates a neutral state, and a green leaf expresses “I feel sad.” At the exit, visitors encounter another tree. Subsequently, the number of leaves of each color at the entrance and exit is tallied to gauge whether the exhibition has affected people’s emotional states.
RUSSIAN EXPERIENCE
Over the past three years, various indices for measuring happiness and well-being have also made their debut in Russia. The pioneer was the Russian Cities Quality of Life Index, developed in 2021 by VEB.RF in collaboration with PwC (now known as Trust Technologies) and the Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, in partnership with the Agency for Strategic Initiatives (ASI). This comprises an information and analytical system that, as of 2023, consists of several components: [22]
• A database encompassing data on over 300 indicators for 218 cities across Russia. It allows analyzing and comparing cities, including with their foreign counterparts (based on individual indicators).
• City profiles, offering a detailed portrait of each city and facilitating comparisons of specific indicators with the national average or a cluster of similar cities.
The Timchenko Foundation also developed the General Index of Child Well-being, introduced in 2021, followed by the RUSAL Cities Quality of Life Index in 2022. These indices share a similar structure and rely on specific indicators. In the following sections, we will delve into each of these indices in more detail and explore how they can be utilized to assess conditions in various regions.
RUSAL’S CITIES QUALITY OF LIFE AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT INDEX
This index, introduced in 2022, forms the basis of the company’s new social investment strategy. Irina Bakhtina, RUSAL’s Chief Sustainability Officer, explained that it is founded on criteria used by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) as well as the VEB.RF Quality of Life Index. [23] The key distinction between RUSAL’s index and VEB.RF’s database lies in the population size of the territories under examination. RUSAL is interested in evaluating the quality of life and sustainability in cities and communities with populations of below 50,000.
66 indicators were considered in the development of this index, including statistical data (32 indicators), survey data (19 indicators), and information obtained through requests to regional and local authorities (15 indicators). RUSAL’s comprehensive tool covers 21 territories, including cities and municipal districts, across 12 dimensions of quality of life, categorized into three aspects: Values, Environment, and Potential.
“Values” include the following characteristics: 1) Work-life balance, leisure
