In this, our sixth CCH seminar in our series at the WHO Collaborative Centre on Culture and Health, ‘Incorporating the Subjective into Wellbeing Measurements’ we heard from Mr Adolfo Morrone, who is an experienced Senior Manager  in cultural statistics and was senior researcher at the The Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT), working on a project of measuring and monitoring the well-being of the Italian Society.  He also managed the design and the publishing of the first Report on “Equitable and Sustainable Well-being”, which is the first results of this inter-institutional initiative of great scientific importance, which places Italy in the forefront of the international panorama for the development of well-being indicators going beyond GDP.  We also heard from from Dr Mauro Fornasiero, University of Exeter.

Adolfo’s presentation focused on the importance of subjective indicators in measuring and evaluating quality of life. He briefly summed up 10 years of debate starting from the work of the Stiglitz, Sen, Fitoussi report and the efforts made by the OECD to stir the debate on going beyond GDP. Adolfo then gave an overview of the Bes (Equitable and sustainable well-being) project carried out by the Italian national statistical Office since 2013. He concluded by presenting some evidences of the relationships between objective indicators and cognitive evaluation of its own life satisfaction.

Mauro looked at ‘measuring wellbeing in Italy: a cultural perspective’.  Drawing from the indicators of Equitable and Sustainable wellbeing in Italy, this presentation showcased three case studies, which inform wellbeing from a cultural perspective.

Due to slight technical difficulties for a brief period of the recording, we have also included the slides for information.