Affective Science - Special Issue on Interventions to Modify Psychological Well-Being and Population Health

Affective Science introduces the Special Issue on Interventions to Modify Psychological Well-Being and Population Health. Browse articles from the Special Issue below.

Guest Editors: Eric Kim, PhD., University of British Columbia, Canada; Judith Tedlie Moskowitz, PhD., Northwestern University, USA; Laura Kubzansky, PhD., Harvard University, USA.

Psychological ill-being is on the rise, with 1 in 5 Americans suffering from a mental disorder in any given year. Additional evidence demonstrates that psychological well-being has also decreased over time. These trends may be a harbinger of what is to come for population health given the substantial and growing body of evidence demonstrating that psychological ill-being (e.g., depression, anxiety, anger) is associated with elevated risk of developing chronic diseases and premature mortality, while aspects of psychological well-being (e.g., sense of purpose and meaning, optimism, life satisfaction) are independently associated with better physical health. Thus, strategies for improving population mental health are urgently needed. An underexplored, but promising approach to enhancing both psychological and physical health is through developing a set of tools that specifically target psychological well-being. In fact, there is increasing demand for such tools. Employers, healthcare systems, school districts, and governments have begun to recognize the importance of well-being, and are seeking programs, and initiatives that can improve the psychological well-being of people within their organizations and of those they serve. However, we have not yet identified clear strategies for improving psychological well-being in meaningful, durable, and scalable ways that are powerful enough to also have downstream effects on physical health. To develop and refine these strategies successfully we will need to address three critical questions regarding existing or newly developed interventions including: 1) do these interventions work? 2) for whom do these interventions work? and 3) why or how do these interventions work? To further explore the exciting possibility of psychological well-being interventions that can improve physical health at-scale, we partnered with Affective Science to produce a Special Issue covering work at the scientific forefront of the topic. With this call, we invited scholars to share new and interdisciplinary thinking in this area. This collection of articles begins to address our knowledge gaps by bringing together cutting-edge conceptual frameworks, critical examination of key constructs, and novel empirical evidence needed to identify and examine interventions that can modify psychological well-being, particularly those that have the potential to be scaled at the population level.

Articles will undergo all of the journal's standard peer review and editorial processes outlined in its submission guidelines (this opens in a new tab).

Part I: Conceptual Frameworks

Emotional Well-Being: What It Is and Why It Matters (this opens in a new tab)
Crystal Park

Well-being: Strengthening and Broadening a Key Psychological Construct (this opens in a new tab)
Belinda Campos

Affective Science - Special Issue on Interventions to Modify Psychological Well-Being and Population Health

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