December Edition – Happiness - UK Faculty of Public Health

SPECIAL FEATURE: HAPPINESSBOOKS & PUBLICATIONSTaking the pathof mostresilienceWHAT helps children and young peoplebecome better at managing risk – andeven, perhaps, happier?Much of the current emphasis onimproving outcomes for children andyoung people has been on earlyintervention, particularly in the early years.But how do we improve the outcomes ofolder children? How can we better supporttheir development as they get older andexperience different risks?The evidence suggests that this can bedone by developing their resilience. Resilientchildren and young people learn tomanage the risks they encounter, bounceback from adversities and are happier.In Wakefield we were particularlyinterested in developing an approach toresilience that looked at such familiar risksas sex and relationships, alcohol, smoking,substance misuse, obesity and child safety.This was in part due to our local publichealth priorities, but also because researchsuggests that resilience is important inmanaging the risks associated with each ofthese.Edith Grotberg identifies three sources ofresilience: “What we have, what we areand what we can do.” Resilience is notsomething that people either have or donot have – it can be learned, and as welearn we increase the range of strategiesavailable to us when things get difficult.The starting point for the Wakefield Riskand Resilience Framework was to identify‘what we can do’ in the form of keycompetences children and young peopleResilient children andyoung people learnto bounce back fromadversities and are‘happier‘need to ‘learn’ in order to have a positiveimpact on their social, emotional andhealth outcomes.The framework is broken down intoeight main competence areas:n Loving myself (self-awareness)n Expressing myself (self-management)n Working it out (responsible decisionmaking)n Being heard (effective communication)n Living together (social awareness)n Keeping safe (risk awareness)n Getting informed (informationmanagement)n Knowing where I am going (self-efficacy)Each of the eight areas is broken downfurther to provide the core competencesthat practitioners may look for a child oryoung person to have achieved by the timethey reach a particular age. Thecompetences are incremental anddevelopmental.Working with a range of stakeholderswe sought ways to help children andyoung people identify their existingcompetencies and those they need tobuild. The results are an online assessment,various other tools for use by early years’practitioners and a paper-based assessmentfor use where an online tool is notpracticable.The final element included the mappingof the competencies across existinginterventions and the production ofbespoke session plans to support thedevelopment of competences and practicalstrategies transferable to differentsituations. This work is ongoing, withvoluntary and statutory organisationscreating and sharing session plans andactivities to build up this resource bank.The framework is now in use acrossWakefield in both universal and targetedsettings. The aim is that children andyoung people will receive the samemessage from all the practitioners workingwith them about what they can do, andhow they can develop to become moreresilient, emotionally well and happy. Asone young person said: “Feeling goodprotects other parts of your life.”Suzanne GahlingsHealth Improvement PrincipalNHS Wakefield DistrictSharon TabbererCo-DirectorArc Research and Consultancywww.riskandresilience.org.ukLife, liberty andthe pursuit ofMappinessTHERE is good evidence that where andhow we live has a bearing on ourwellbeing. The research tool and iPhoneapp Mappiness (www.mappiness.org.uk)gathers real-time information about theselinks to better understand how people'sfeelings are affected by features of theircurrent environment, such as air pollution,noise and green spaces.Participants in the research are beepedonce or more a day to ask how they arefeeling, and for a few basic things tocontrol for: whom they’re with, where theyare and what they are doing. The data issent back – anonymously and securely – toa data store, along with an approximatelocation from the iPhone’s GPS and anoise-level measure. People also haveaccess to their data after they submit it.The research team at the London Schoolof Economics has had more than 3.5million responses from more than 50,000people. Most of the results are intuitive.People feel happier by the coast or in arural environment. Very hot weather makespeople much happier. Following feedbackfrom participants, we added a newcategory covering intimacy and makinglove, which has had much higher ratingsthan any other category.The project has had unexpected benefits:we know that some psychiatrists andpsychologists have directed patients towardsthe app as a means of tracking their mood.We are open to collaborating with publichealth professionals who work on wellbeing.George MacKerronVisiting FellowLondon School of EconomicsStraight talkingfrom the archspin doctorALASTAIR Campbell: a man synonymouswith spin, New Labour, the Blair years andeverything that went with them. Butwhatever your personal views onCampbell, there is no doubting hiscredentials in this subject area: happiness.In this book, Campbell draws upon hisown experiences of depression to try toanswer the million-dollar question: what isit that makes us happy? He then uses hispolitical experience to consider another bigquestion: can politics deliver happiness,and should it try?In addressing the first question,Campbell talks candidly about the impactof his depression on those closest to him,and the insights into managing a conditionwhich affects one in 10 will strike a chordwith many.In addressing the second question,Campbell’s insights draw upon hisconsiderable knowledge of the governmentmachine, while at the same time weavingin research evidence and examples ofhappiness policies around the world.How music cansoothe thesavage breastAT THE risk of misquoting Noel Coward –we all know the extraordinary power musichas to move and soothe us. We know howuplifting it can be. We know the buzz wecan get from creating it, sharing it, beingimmersed in it. We also know that musiccan heal.Yet only recently have researchers begunto explore these effects across a range ofcultures and musical genres. With so muchdiversity and serendipity, how can weencapsulate, codify, quantify and make anykind of unifying theoretical sense of themusic/health/wellbeing relationship?Should we even try?For the first time, expert perspectivesfrom a wide range of academic disciplines,including music psychology, therapy,neurobiology and public health, have beenbrought together in a single book, buildingup a truly comprehensive overview of themany ways in which the power of musiccan be harnessed to help prevent and treatillness and promote health and wellbeing.There’s a chapter on the philosophicaland cultural foundations of music as socialOne of the highlights is a summary ofthe key literature on happiness, wealth andpublic health. The public health readershipwill no doubt enjoy the graphs, one ofwhich shows the work of the so-called‘happiness economist’ Richard Layardplotting relative happiness against GrossDomestic Product per capita. Campbellrecalls Layard presenting this graph inDowning Street alongside a paper entitledLife Satisfaction and Its Policy Implications.But as Campbell says, Blair “didn’t reallygo for it”. However, and to my surprise,Campbell is complimentary about ourcurrent PM for his leadership on thehappiness agenda, praising Cameron for“taking up the ideas presented to thepredecessor on whom he sometimesmodels himself”. He couldn’t after all resista little spin, but this book is at its bestwhen it avoids such political put-downs.One of the most powerful chaptersreturns to Campbell’s personal life and hisexperiences dealing with the loss of one ofhis closest friends, the Labour pollsterPhilip Gould. The articulation of theprocess of preparing and then grieving fora loved one and his reflections onhappiness at the end of life contrastdramatically with the ‘evidence’ presentedin the previous chapter. It is a pertinentreminder of the power of our personaltherapy – and another on the theories andmodels behind music as individual therapy.There’s a chapter looking at music and thehuman brain – neurotransmitters, thelimbic system and brain plasticity. Furtherchapters consider community music andpublic health, music as an adjunct topsychological therapies such as CognitiveBehavioural Therapy or guided imagery,music and pain management, music andchronic physical illness, and many otheraspects.A particularly intriguing chapter looks atthe role of music in the management ofautism and vividly describes a number ofcase studies with severely autistic children.Another, quite topical, chapter outlines thelinks between community choirs andwellbeing – from older people in nursinghomes to adults with learning difficulties,and from prisoners to asylum seekers andrefugees. No mention of military wives –but only because the academics haven’tyet got round to studying them.There’s even an in-depth discussion ofthe evidence for and against backgroundmusic in supermarkets (increased sales),workplaces (increased productivity), dentalsurgeries (calmer patients) and operatingtheatres (calmer staff).This book is not an easy read, anddoesn’t pretend to be. But it is probablythe most all-embracing collection of theoryexperiences, the eternal fabric of theevidence we sometimes cling so tightly to.Whatever your views on Campbell, it isfor this reason that this short book isworth a look. I can’t guarantee it will makeyou ‘happy’, but it will, at the very least,prove an interesting and reflective read.The Happy DepressiveAlastair CampbellPublished by ArrowISBN 9780099579823RRP: £4.99Matthew Dayand evidence linking music, health andwellbeing currently available. For studentsand researchers in social and psychologicalsciences, as well as those in musiceducation and therapy, it’s nothing lessthan a symphonic extravaganza.Alan Maryon-DavisMusic, Health & WellbeingEdited by Raymond Macdonald,Gunter Kreutz and Laura MitchellPublished by Oxford University PressISBN 9780199586974RRP: £5518 PUBLIC HEALTH TODAYDECEMBER 2012 19