Why We Need a Common Definition for Well-Being

July 26, 2024

By Nick Dewan, M.D., vice president of behavioral health for GuideWell and Florida Blue

For decades, policy makers and researchers in the U.S. and internationally have studied both mental illness and conversely mental health concepts such as happiness, purpose, relationships, and resilience to understand the factors that promote well-being. There are ongoing efforts to continue to improve how the field defines and measures mental illness, but efforts to clearly define the positive factors of mental health, notably mental well-being, have been more limited. In essence, mental well-being is not the mere absence of distress but the presence of a positive and hopeful state. 

As a mental health community, we have emphasized the need for research of mental health disorders for hundreds of years but research to understand mental well-being has been more recent. 

For example, a study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health in 2022, confirms life satisfaction of working adults and their happiness mutually influence each other. The article states “life satisfaction plays a major role in happiness, and at the same time, feelings of happiness help working adults to enhance and record higher life satisfaction.” 

And this article from Industrial Psychiatry Journal includes resilience as an attribute of positive mental well-being.  

Why It Matters

Defining and communicating mental well-being in a consistent way will help scale mental health awareness campaigns and forge partnerships to better integrate mental health care by rallying around a concise, common definition. 

It also provides a better way to evaluate outcomes at the individual level and potentially across populations. Once you have a defined data set, you can then measure progress to develop programs and interventions that focus on whole person health. 

An opinion piece titled Reimagining Health – Flourishing, published in JAMA, concludes “the concept of flourishing has the potential to capture health more broadly than existing wellness measures for both patients and populations.” Researchers are now measuring flourishing and others are incorporating the results of these findings into the workplace, clinical practice, and public health. However, there is no universal definition to be used to apply these measurements, which is why organizations are using different definitions and measures of mental well-being. 

There Is No Health Without Mental Health

At GuideWell and Florida Blue, we believe there is no health without mental health. The importance of mental well-being to overall health is integrated into every facet of our organization, including our primary care provider network, our care programs, our Florida Blue Centers, and within each company that is part of our enterprise. 

We’re able to effectively do this because we have defined mental well-being and these definitions have been our north star. They give us a clear roadmap to follow. 

Succinctly and collectively defining and measuring mental well-being encourages a consistent approach in all we do. The definitions also align closely with the survey research efforts related to human flourishing in many countries around the world where the common denominator is working to achieve that positive perspective of well-being and satisfaction with life, work, and relationships. At the same time, we have also emphasized holistic health and well-being and to that end we have developed an overall definition of well-being to complement our work on mental well-being. 

Defining Well-Being

According to research published in Population Health Metrics, “Well-being is now accepted as one of four cross-cutting measures in gauging progress for Healthy People 2020.”

As we shared our definitions of mental well-being with other organizations and across the health care industry and received input from other thought leaders, we went beyond the concept of an emotional state, and incorporated physical health and the individual’s role in their future into an expanded set of definitions for overall well-being. We hope that by having a shared way to define holistic health and well-being we can further harmonize our efforts and catalyze partnerships to support our mission of helping people and communities achieve better health.

• For Adults – Well-being is an overall positive and hopeful mental state fueled by a sense of purpose and satisfaction with life, work, relationships, physical health, and functioning, and supported by the capacity to adapt to life stressors along with a feeling of control over one’s future. ©
• For Youth – Well-being is an overall positive mental state fueled by a sense of hope, satisfaction with life, relationships, physical health, and functioning, and supported by the capacity to adapt to life stressors along with a feeling of control over one’s future. ©

A clear definition is fundamental to moving toward a common aim of achieving a positive and hopeful perspective. 

By following a shared “north star,” we can navigate together to help people achieve a positive state of well-being. 

To learn more about our definitions or our mental health and mental well-being initiatives, reach out to me at: Nick.Dewan@FloridaBlue.com.

Sources and citations

Exploring the Reciprocal Relationships between Happiness and Life Satisfaction of Working Adults—Evidence from Abu Dhabi
Citation: Badri, M.A.; Alkhaili, M.; Aldhaheri, H.; Yang, G.; Albahar, M.; Alrashdi, A. Exploring the Reciprocal Relationships between Happiness and Life Satisfaction of Working Adults—Evidence from Abu Dhabi. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19, 3575. https://doi.org/10.3390/ ijerph19063575
Positive mental health and its relationship with resilience 
Citation: PMC Ind Psychiatry J. 2011 Jul-Dec; 20(2): 75–76. doi: 10.4103/0972-6748.102469: 10.4103/0972-6748.102469
Reimagining Health—Flourishing Published Online: April 1, 2019. doi:10.1001/jama.2019.3035 JAMA Citation: VanderWeele TJ, McNeely E, Koh HK. Reimagining Health—Flourishing. JAMA. 2019;321(17):1667–1668. doi:10.1001/jama.2019.3035
Mental, social, and physical well-being in New Hampshire, Oregon, and Washington, 2010 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System: implications for public health research and practice related to Healthy People 2020 foundation health measures on well-being
Citation: Kobau et al. Population Health Metrics 2013, 11 :19.  Mental, social, and physical well-being in New Hampshire, Oregon, and Washington, 2010 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System: implications for public health research and practice related to Healthy People 2020 foundation health measures on well-being. http://www.pophealthmetrics.com/content/11 /1 /19