Mobilities and the well-being agenda

Tony Gatrell

Dean, School of Health & MedicineLancaster University

CeMoRe Research DayMay 25th

Lack of visibility of health in mobilities literature

For example:

• Cresswell ‘On the Move’• Adey ‘ Mobility’• Moran ‘On Roads’

So please regard this presentation in part as a general invitation to explore connections

Some existing and potential areas of intersection between ‘mobilities’ and ‘health’

• Travel – the journey itself and the positive and negative affect it creates; impact of journeys on others’ health and well-being

• Migration – the ordinary experiences and extra-ordinary sufferings of migrants

• Diffusion- the spread of infections and responses to these – impact of time-space convergence and socio-political responses (biosecurity)

• Communication – the impact of new technologies on health and well-being

• Care – the delivery of this in mobile settings, the seeking out of care abroad, the movements of health professionals and the impacts of these

• Many of these covered in ‘Mobilities & Health’ (Gatrell, forthcoming in Ashgate series, November 2011); rich theoretical and empirical pickings...

Well-being

• Subjective wellbeing concerns people’s self-reported wellbeing (e.g. life satisfaction, happiness, psychological wellbeing).

• ‘Global evaluation’ questions are those which aim to generate overall cross-cutting measures of people’s experience of life (e.g. All things considered, are you satisfied with your life?).

• ‘Domain evaluation’ questions are those which aim to generate overall measures of people’s experience with particular aspects of life (e.g. work, health, material wellbeing, relationships, social support, quality of local area, environment).

Measuring well-being

“All things considered, how satisfied would you say you are with your life these days? Please tell me on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 means very dissatisfied and 10 means very satisfied”

“Taking all things together on a scale of 1 to 10, how happy would you say you are? Here 1 means you are very unhappy and 10 means you are very happy”.

• But the well-being agenda seems to be settings-based or place-based (for countries, or cities, or workplaces)

• Well-being ‘on the move’ seems to be ignored.

Life satisfaction and happiness index by country

Travel

So, plenty of evidence that well-being is affected by ‘place’, but the well-being literature (and associated policy documents) tend to neglect travel itself as a contributor to well-being.

Journey as: adventure, experience, escape, therapy, exercise.

Solitary or undertaken with others.

Any mode of travel can contribute, but experiences can vary, and context matters.

Poetry in motion (walking)

Simon Armitage:

‘there’s a sense of creativity about it, and a sense of wellbeing that you are getting the organs and the lungs and the blood moving. You never come back from a walk feeling worse’.

Andrew Motion:

‘the rhythm of walking and rhythm of writing and poetry are very easily combined...the movement of the body releases a poem and then confirms its rhythmic identity...walking gives you ideas, unblocks blockages, sets up rhythms in your head’ (interviews in the Guardian newspaper, 17 November 2010).

Care

Delivery of this via mobile technologies or online can contribute to well-being, building network capital

This applies in generic contexts as well as in specific circumstances (e.g. ‘disasters’ such as 2001 FMD outbreak) or for particular user communities.

Key messages

For ‘mobilities’ community – please engage with the broad health agenda

For ‘well-being’ and ‘happiness gurus’ – don’t ignore the role that mobilities, real and virtual, actual or potential, can contribute to well-being.