Communities are more than the sum of their parts – often having emergent properties that arise from social relationships, local histories, and culture. In recent work, the Population Health Analytics Lab has been interested in understanding the values that arise from collective life and contribute to the overall wellbeing of our communities. Centering community-based research, the lab’s community wellbeing projects attempt to better understand the physical, social, economic, political, cultural, and environmental resources that compose our communities and serve the needs of residents. We are also expressly interested in evaluating the equity and sustainability of community resources to help ensure that all residents have the privilege to flourish within their communities.
Across our research on community wellbeing, we have prioritized the generation of local evidence in order to produce adaptable recommendations that are specific to Ontario communities. Our team has published some of the first longitudinal Canadian studies examining the relationship between life satisfaction and health outcomes including healthcare utilization, incident chronic disease and death, and avoidable hospitalizations. We have also conducted community-based surveys that have used indicators of community wellbeing to capture snapshots across several Ontario communities. Most recently, we have published qualitative research where local residents of Ontario communities shared their perspective on the constituents of community wellbeing, but also discussed the unique challenges, inequities, and barriers that prevent residents from flourishing within their communities.
We continue this work across several ongoing projects. In partnership with the School of Cities, we are launching a project focused on exploring the connections between migration, belonging, and community wellbeing. Concurrently, we are working with the City of Toronto’s SafeTO Collaborative Analytics and Learning Environment (SCALE) as part of their on-going development of a data integration platform for community wellbeing in the City.
To learn more about our work on community wellbeing and life satisfaction, please see the following resources:
- Foster, A., Pagalan, L., Michalski, C. A., Chu, C., Diemert, L. M., Ragunathan, A., & Rosella, L. C. (2023). The community wellbeing survey 2021-2022: A community-informed approach to characterizing community wellbeing in Ontario. Population Health Analytics Lab. https://pophealthanalytics.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/TheCommunityWellbeingSurvey.pdf
- De Prophetis, E., Goel, V., Watson, T., & Rosella, L. C. (2020). Relationship between life satisfaction and preventable hospitalisations: A population-based cohort study in Ontario, Canada. BMJ Open, 10(2), e032837. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2019-032837
- Goel, V., Rosella, L. C., Fu, L., & Alberga, A. (2018). The Relationship Between Life Satisfaction and Healthcare Utilization: A Longitudinal Study. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 55(2), 142–150. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2018.04.004
- Michalski, C. A., Diemert, L. M., Helliwell, J. F., Goel, V., & Rosella, L. C. (2020). Relationship between sense of community belonging and self-rated health across life stages. SSM – Population Health, 12, 100676. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmph.2020.100676
- Michalski, C. A., Diemert, L. M., Hurst, M., Goel, V., & Rosella, L. C. (2022). Is life satisfaction associated with future mental health service use? An observational population-based cohort study. BMJ Open, 12(4), e050057. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2021-050057
- Michalski, C. A., Diemert, L. M., & Rosella, L. C. (2020). Canadian atlas of community belonging, 2005-2014: Trends across Canada. Population Health Analytics Lab. https://pophealthanalytics.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/CB-Atlas_Final_Publication.pdf
- Michalski, C., Ragunathan, A., Foster, A., Pagalan, L., Chu, C., Diemert, L. M., Helliwell, J. F., Urajnik, D., Speidel, R., Malti, T., Fierheller, D., Fusca, L., Zenlea, I., McKean, S., & Rosella, L. C. (2023). Towards a community-driven definition of community wellbeing: A qualitative study of residents. PLOS ONE, 18(11), e0294721. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0294721
- Rosella, L. C., Fu, L., Buajitti, E., & Goel, V. (2019). Death and Chronic Disease Risk Associated With Poor Life Satisfaction: A Population-Based Cohort Study. American Journal of Epidemiology, 188(2), 323–331. https://doi.org/10.1093/aje/kwy245