By Jill Suttie, Greater Good Magazine, June 26, 2019.
The World Happiness Report comes out every year, providing some data about how well-being varies from country to country and how it shifts within a country from one year to the next. But what makes some countries happier than others?
Dóra Guðmundsdóttir is one of many researchers around the world studying happiness and well-being at the population level. By analyzing large data sets, she has helped to uncover the “epidemiology of well-being”—how different groups within a country are faring in response to changing social and economic forces, such as inequality, recessions, and education policies.
By understanding these effects, she helps a country’s politicians and policymakers make better decisions to support the well-being of their citizens. To date, she has worked with the government in her home country of Iceland, where she is the director of determinants of health and wellbeing at the Directorate of Health.
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