Reflections on happiness
Pages | 90-91 |
Published date | 18 June 2018 |
Date | 18 June 2018 |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JPMH-04-2018-0021 |
Author | Woody Caan |
Subject Matter | Health & social care,Mental health,Public mental health |
Reflections on happiness
Woody Caan
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to assess the twenty-first century reach and impact of “happiness”
work by one individual (Professor Lord Richard Layard).
Design/methodology/approach –The author approaches his work as a public health case study,with the
caveat that the author knew this “Case”personally, which could influence the author’s assessment.
Findings –During 2005-2018, Richard Layard stimulated discussion of “happiness”as a field of study. This field
now has global relevance to mental health, although its relationship to practice for popul ation health is still debated.
Originality/value –Layard’s ideas are behind many initiatives, such as Improving Access to
Psychological Therapi es.
Keywords Economics, Utility
Paper type Viewpoint
This week the sixth World Happiness Report was published (Helliwell et al., 2018). A driving force
behind much research on “happiness”has been the Professor Lord Layard, an economist.
Previously, Layard had been advising the UK Government about the impact of depression on the
adult workforce (Centre for Economic Performance, 2006) which left a remarkable legacy in
terms of new, psychological treatment services. In 2010, he went on to found the charity Action
for Happiness (www.actionforhappiness.org/), whose patron is the Dalai Lama.
Layard’s consistent ambition, not only for improved mental health in Britain, but also around the
world, has long gained my admiration. This opinion piece considers his happiness ideas as a
case study of academic reach and impact.
When I searched the SCOPUS database (www.scopus.com/) for “Richard Layard”
(2005-2017), there were 12 papers in three Languages (English, Spanish or French) in 11
different journals. One was a published interview (Pearce, 2005) which gives the foundation
( from economics and policy-making) of Layard’s academic approach to happiness. Areas
where Layard saw a clear overlap between public mental health and happiness included work,
unemployment and parenting initiatives. Overall, the later papers identified flaws with the
original economi c or utility model o f happiness, such as : a lack of community or societal
dimensions, too narrow a view of an individual’s psychology or t he absence of polit ical or
sociological frameworks in which to embed the expansion of treatment services. From my
Editorial viewpo int, if Layard’sideaof“happiness ”has stimulated ove r a decade of animated,
international debate, that is a sign of powerful academic reach.
The immediate impact of the Penguin paperback Happiness (Layard, 2005) is illustrated by the
multi-author, multi-disciplinary book The Science of Well-being that came out the same year
(Huppert et al., 2005): four contributors cited Layard. By 2018, according to the ResearchGate
data set of papers, Happiness has been cited 2,404 times. Layard’s (2013) personal impact on
policy-makers was visible in Parliament when the Academy of Social Sciences launched its case
for Mental Wellbeing there in 2013.
Professor Layard now works with an international partnership on global aspects of happiness,
such as the impact of migration on wellbeing (What Works Centre for Wellbeing, 2018). One of
key messages from that study is that:
■Happiness is not fixed.
Received 3 April 2018
Accepted 19 April 2018
Woody Caan is based at
RSPH, Duxford, UK.
PAG E 90
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JOURNAL OF PUBLIC MENTAL HEALTH
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VOL. 17 NO. 2 2018, pp. 90-91, © Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 1746-5729 DOI 10.1108/JPMH-04-2018-0021
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