Third party validation based on legitimate metrics makes accepting positive change essential for altruistic leaders. Well-being and health can be measured and statistically improved using proven principles and processes. No longer will the tyranny of the present nor learned helplessness validate persistent misery and disease.
“Can a collective-impact initiative improve well-being in three US communities? Findings from a prospective repeated cross-sectional study” published last month is just what the doctor ordered to address inequity, inclusion, and diversity along with the social determinants of health. The three cities—Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach, and Redondo Beach—bravely implemented a collective approach to create a sustainable environment, nudging people to better health and wellness. The principles employed were based on common characteristics found in five regions around the world where people lived the longest.
Currently, entire workforces are plagued with flagging satisfaction and poor engagement, while whole industries are struggling with recruitment and retention. Fortunately, change for the better has been documented in the three “early adaptor” cites noted above, extending to an additional seventy regions including over 4.4 million folks. Every one of the regions has benefited objectively from embracing proven practices addressing people, places, and policy.
The study above includes strengths and limitations as per the introductory summary (lightly edited):
In one set of US communities over an 8-year period, repeated cross-sectional studies using the largest longitudinal dataset on well-being of the US population along with data from targeted oversampling of local communities were conducted to examine the impact of a community-led, collective-impact initiative aimed at improving the health and well-being of residents.
The study measured well-being using the Life Evaluation Index (LEI), a measure frequently used as a surrogate for well-being and a known predictor of population health outcomes, along with select health behaviors and other health-related outcomes.
Assessing how the LEI of residents of Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach and Redondo Beach in California changed over time was the core of the project. Also examined was this change in comparison to change in LEI both for similar cities in the US and for the entire US.
The types of interventions (process, programs, policy) along with their perceived impacts as well as the relationships between type of intervention and LEI-measured change in well-being were analyzed.
Self-reported outcomes are subjective, leaving the potential for responses to change over time in a way that is unrelated to underlying life evaluation and environment. Thus, the validated Cantril Self-Anchoring Scale tool, which converts subjective to objective metrics—an accurate reflection of individuals’ state of well-being and happiness—was used.
Longer life expectancy and lower health care costs are two important accomplishments but, even more importantly, improved health and well-being for individuals are altruistic obtainable results. A strategic and coordinated partnership across a community is needed to obtain sustainable results. Recruiting, retaining, educating, and empowering leaders is an early necessary goal. Managing expectations and reassuring everyone that objective results typically take about one-year to start, with subsequent accelerated progress once a critical mass is reached.
The documented results from communities that bravely began the journey in 2010 are sustainable. Excuses based on lack of efficacy are spurious. Recreating the “wheel” just wastes time and resources. The energy and rhetoric addressing the social determinants of health and other maladies today can be beneficially directed to adopting proven policies that will change metrics for the better.