1. UK’s Approach to Measuring Personal Well-being
Matthew Steel
Office for National Statistics
3-4 December 2015

2. Contents Developing measures of personal well-being in the UK
Where we are now
Use of the results
Lessons learned and future directions

3. A quick refresher
UK’s Measuring National Well-being (MNW) Programme was launched in November 2010.
Aim of producing accepted and trusted measures of the well-being of the nation.
Measurement of PWB part of much larger programme, involving:
-Wide scale public consultation via a National Debate focusing on ‘what matters most to you?’
-Linked to this, selection of (now) 42 headline indicators

4. Personal Well-being Questions
The questions have been asked on the APS Survey since April 2011, and have now achieved National Statistics Status.

5. The Annual Population Survey
Key strengths
Key challenges
Large sample: 165,000 people per year
Representative of UK adults (aged 16+) living in residential households
Enables analysis of small sub-groups; lower level geographies
Annual frequency; interviewing throughout the year
Mixed mode interviewing (CAPI/ CATI)
Topic coverage- based on Labour Force Survey
Complex sample design- panel element
Household survey- no representation of non-household population

6. How well do the PWB questions work?
Opinions and Lifestyle Survey (OPN) used for testing alternatives:
- Question order effects
- Question wording variations
Cognitive testing used for understanding why things matter:
- How people understand and use the response scale
- Views about interview context
Secondary analysis of the APS data used to explore:
Mode effects
Day of the week effects
Other surveys and researchers:
Now used on many other surveys across the UK
Questions used in evaluative work, before/ after designs, among marginalised groups, in translation, etc…

7. How does interview mode affect responses?
People rate personal well-being significantly lower on average when interviewed face-to-face compared to by telephone
Life sat
Worthwhile
Happy yesterday
Anxious yesterday
Face-to-face interview
-0.171*
-0.165*
-0.132*
0.054

8. How does alternative wording affect responses?
Overall, how anxious did you feel yesterday?
Overall, how worried did you feel yesterday?
Anxious yesterday question wording - November 20111
1. Only one months data available and therefore based on small sample sizes.

9. Does month of interview make a difference?
significant differences in life satisfaction and happiness month on month, but not worthwhile

10. Does month of interview make a difference?
A significant difference at the 1% level between months for the ‘anxious yesterday’ question.
Mean anxious yesterday by month

11. Conclusions from testing so far...
Testing programme is a work in progress, but findings suggest…
- Mode of interview matters
- Asking the questions in different ways matters- but which way is best?
- Day of the week matters
- There are fluctuations over the year, but is this in response to events or seasonal or both?
- A closer look is needed at panel effects and online mode effects

12. Uses of ONS personal well-being data
Key reason for measuring national well-being is to make better policy decisions
ONS personal well-being data are becoming a more and more common instrument for assessing, among other things, policy impact
I will first touch upon a few examples demonstrating the value of personal well-being data based on ONS led analysis

14. How have the results been used (Fear of crime)
Positive personal well-being rating, broken down by likelihood of being a victim of crime, 2012/13 and 2013/14 CSEW

15. How have the results been used (Engagement with natural environment)
Life satisfaction, broken down by engagement frequency with the natural environment; MENE

16. Some other examples.....
The British Red Cross used personal well-being measures to capture outcomes for refugees at the beginning and end of the support period.
UK Government created a dedicated ‘Well-being What Works Centre’. They have adopted ONS well-being definition to help shape activities.
Public Health England have recommended ONS4 as a preferred measurement tool for assessing the well-being of children and young persons.

17. Recognising the benefits of volunteering (social action)

18. Is it worthwhile asking all 4 questions?
In simple, the answer is yes.
The ONS4 have been widely syndicated across a large number of UK surveys, have National Statistic accreditation, and each of the 4 questions tells us something different/ interesting
However, if space is limited then a few of these questions could be added that are most relevant to the intervention being tested.

19. If you do need to prioritise
A few pointers to help you choose:
1. Life Satisfaction; is the most widely used and comparable measure.
2. Anxiety; has been seen to be particularly sensitive to a range of interventions and life events and as such is worth including as a priority if there is space available.
3. Worthwhile; is particularly useful for capturing the impact of activities such as volunteering and work.
4. Happiness; if measured can also be combined with anxiety to calculate affect balance (happiness minus anxiety).

20. Lessons learned
Too much focus on personal well-being, incorrectly became synonymous with national well-being but understand why, e.g easy to understand, easy to benchmark against, 4 measures better than 42
Happiness perceived by some as too fluffy, but evidence that tide is turning
The more sub-national your estimates the better...

21. Creating a 3 year dataset enabled local authority analysis

22. Future directions Planned/ possible further testing:
Internet-based data collection
Panel effects
Latent class analysis, to enable identification of well-being profiles
Well-being adjusted life years (or WELBYs)
Bridging to SDGs?
Social Capital collaboration with OECD

23. Any questions? Matthew.Steel@ons.gsi.gov.uk
@StatSteel

24. Helpful Links
Social Impacts Task Force guidelines on introducing personal well-being questions:
OECD Guidelines on Measuring Subjective Well-being:
Personal Well-being in the UK, 2014/15: