Although the wellbeing of the population has long been a concern of governments, in recent years, momentum has been building for governments to consider wellbeing as a measure of success and progress alongside traditional economic measures like Gross National Product (GNP). This movement has led to the adoption of strategies and policies which make quality of life or wellbeing a priority area for policy in jurisdictions including New Zealand, Finland, Scotland, Wales, and Canada.

In this Fact Sheet, we look at how wellbeing has developed as a policy focus for central governments and consider how wellbeing approaches to policy making coincide with public health priorities and whether they may offer promise in advancing healthy public policy in a post COVID-19 recovery.

Build Back Better: Wellbeing Budgets for a Post COVID-19 Recovery?
8 pages