Tracking wellbeing during and after a global pandemic
Across the world, we’re self-isolating for the physical health of both ourselves and others. But how is our mental health being affected by this new way of life?
My Wellness Check is a tool that helps you track and reflect on your daily well-being.
By Willem van der Maden
Across the world, we’re self-isolating for the physical health of both ourselves and others. But how is our mental health being affected by this new way of life?
My Wellness Check is a tool that helps you track and reflect on your daily well-being.
It goes without saying that we’re all in a strange, unprecedented situation at the moment. Across the world, we’re collectively locked inside our houses to prevent the spread of coronavirus. In the past few weeks we’ve seen a whole new digital era of online and home education, online concerts, Zoom meetings — and most importantly, social distancing.
Isn’t it strange to be so connected, but so confined?
Then if we do chat face to face, the first thing everybody asks — whether it’s a Zoom meeting or a WhatsApp message — goes something like this:
“Are you doing alright?”
“Are you holding up OK?”
”Keeping it together?”
We might say yes, but honestly, do we really know? And beyond us, how is everyone else coping with this strange new world? Are we all actually fine, or is our health and wellbeing suffering under lockdown? And what about our wellbeing after this crisis?
Design Process — let your voice be heard!
A group of researchers and designers from TU Delft and UC San Diego have developed a tool that can help you keep track of your wellbeing in these strange, difficult times. My Wellness Check is a platform created to track participants’ wellbeing and provide you with useful feedback on how you’re doing. Most importantly, it gives you the ability to make your voice heard. What do you think is needed to support your wellbeing? Tell us!
Positive Psychology — wellbeing measurement
The field of positive psychology has developed a broad range of wellbeing assessments that serve a variety of different purposes, from basic scientific research to mental health assessment. Wellbeing assessment has even been used as a supplement or replacement for large-scale economic metrics like GDP (as in the case of Bhutan’s use of a Gross National Happiness Index).
The wellbeing assessments that have been examined are the Satisfaction With Life scale, Harmony In Life scale , Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale , PERMA-profiler, Ryff’s scales of Psychological Wellbeing extended to spiritual wellbeing and the WHO-5.
From this a number of pointers, or wellbeing factors, arose that at face-value would take a hit from being locked inside. Think for example about your degree of exercise, social contact, feeling engaged with what you’re doing, number of novel experiences, degree of control, and so on… But what is enough?
Personal experience
Therefore, we created a tool to keep track of the different factors. In the rudimentary phases of the project, we noticed that this tool did not only provide us with information about how we are doing over time, but also increased or own awareness of how we were doing.
In the first week, for me personally, this resulted in the realization that I should go out more, exercise more, and that I should ring up my grandfather more than I had done in the weeks before. While this may sound familiar to seasoned wellbeing researchers, it was a welcome realization to us. Because what this means, is that it provides incentive for people to actually use our tool!
A new method: participatory survey design
Next, we had to take the step of improving the survey and getting people to respond. One of the things that we have noticed that is very important, and also difficult, about wellbeing, is that what each person needs is different from one to another. So to find out how each person is doing with regard to the predefined wellbeing factors, we had to find out how and what they want to be asked about them.
For this devised a way that we could not find much information about. We called the approach, participatory survey design. What this means is that we use the feedback of participants to update and improve the survey. For example, you could be asked: “was this question clear?”, “do you think this question is important?”, “what is important for you when you are asked about your wellbeing in these difficult times?”, and “what is important for you to feel satisfied?”.
In order to work toward a product that is meaningful for the user, we established three design goals and criteria to test them:
AI fueled wellbeing measurement post-COVID-19
Hopefully, and luckily, for us, we won’t be in this pandemic crisis for ever. So is there any application for this tool of yours in our lives after the crisis you might ask. For the future we see a highly developed version of our tool to be used in different situations.
For example, an employer could use it to better understand the wellbeing needs of its employees. Or a government of its citizens. Or a school of its students, and so on.
But also for you personally, we could see an AI powered system that, based on your information, creates a wellness check-in that adapts to you. To your personality, your needs, and most importantly, your explicit feedback: what do YOU think you need. In this way, each and every one of us can work toward long-term wellbeing, which is ultimately the only thing we really want.
Conclusion
In conclusion, My Wellness Check is a tool to help scientists keep track of your wellbeing in times of a global pandemic, in times of crisis. But it is not only a tool to help scientists, it is also a tool to help you! To help you understand how you are doing, what you actually need to improve, and guide you in the process. To participate, sign up at www.MyWellCheck.org
