From Individual Wellbeing to Regional Priorities: Concepts and Measures to Assist Policy Makers (Electronic book text)

Understanding of subjective perceptions of wellbeing, that is, perceived needs and current levels of satisfactions of people, could provide valuable information for policy and decision makers. It would allow for mapping of the envisaged impacts of policy - negative and positive ones - against things that people value and care about, thus providing information about the potential of different policy options to increase or decrease human welfare. In this book, Dr Silva Larson takes us on a journey of explorations of things that are important to people. She argues that an approach that takes into account both what people value most and how satisfied they are with the current state of affairs would assist decision makers with identifying perceived regional priorities. Further, she proposes and describes one such approach, that of using a quantitative composite value that combines both types of information, and demonstrates, using two shires in Great Barrier Reef region of Australia as examples, how this can be done. The resulting aaction listsa identify and quantify unsatisfied needs of most importance to most people in the region, that is, factors that have high potential to improve quality of life of the residents, if restored."