What are the best ways to measure the ‘softer’ outcomes, such as changes in wellbeing, and how to attach a value to such interventions?

Background

We are keen to hear about cutting-edge approaches the research community is using which could have applications to our work. Particularly in ground-breaking evaluations, with robust focus on impact and value for money, what works and using more innovative techniques and data sharing

Next steps

The lead contacts are: Lesley Smith, Senior Principal Research Officer, Analysis, Research and Co-ordination Unit, Analysis and Data Directorate: Lesley.Smith@levellingup.gov.uk and David Hughes, Head of the Chief Scientific Adviser’s office: psChiefScientificAdviser@levellingup.gov.uk.

Source

This question was published as part of the set of ARIs in this document:

DLUHC Areas of research interest GOVUK

Related UKRI funded projects

  • Developing a wellbeing measure for public health evaluations: integrating capabilities and happiness

    Public health programmes are considered to be complex because they often require people to change their behaviour and involve interventions that cut across multiple sectors. For this reason, public health programmes are ...

    Funded by: MRC

    Lead research organisation: London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

    Why might this be relevant?

    The project aims to develop new methods to measure wellbeing, which is directly relevant to the question of measuring 'softer' outcomes and attaching a value to interventions.

  • What Works Centre for Wellbeing - Cross-cutting strand

    Our aim is to enable policy-makers at all levels to target their decisions at improving the subjective wellbeing of their client group. The decision-makers we have in mind include those in central and local government, t...

    Funded by: ESRC

    Lead research organisation: London School of Economics and Political Science

    Why might this be relevant?

    The project focuses on enabling policy-makers to target decisions at improving subjective wellbeing, which is partially relevant to the question of measuring 'softer' outcomes and attaching a value to interventions.

  • Going beyond health related quality of life - towards a broader QALY measure for use across sectors

    The NHS has a limited budget and so deciding to spend money on an expensive drug means less is available for other services. NICE helps the NHS by providing guidance on whether new medicines should be made available to p...

    Funded by: MRC

    Lead research organisation: University of Sheffield

    Why might this be relevant?

    The project aims to develop a new measure that includes aspects of life important to quality of life, which is partially relevant to the question of measuring 'softer' outcomes and attaching a value to interventions.

  • Sheffield Hallam University and Westfield Health & Wellbeing Limited

    To develop a calibrated model to understand the impact of Health and Wellbeing Interventions on the individuals and companies who invest in them....

    Funded by: Innovate UK

    Lead research organisation: SHEFFIELD HALLAM UNIVERSITY

  • Valuing the health benefits of city well-being

    A large body of research shows that improvements in well-being have a significant causal impact on better health. However, these benefits have yet to be quantified. In order for local policymakers to make well-being poli...

    Funded by: Innovate UK

    Lead research organisation: HAPPY CITY CIC

  • Making Wellbeing Count for Policy: Patterns and trends in personal, social and societal wellbeing in Europe and the UK.

    Recent years have seen a huge growth in interest in the concept of wellbeing, and this has been matched by a steady increase in the amount of data available for studying it. After the so-called Stiglitz report commission...

    Funded by: ESRC

    Lead research organisation: City, University of London

  • The Many Dimensions of Wellbeing

    Government policies are often justified by their potential contribution to the growth of GDP, and yet the sense that it is a flawed measure, failing to capture much of people's experience of economic progress (or otherwi...

    Funded by: ESRC

    Lead research organisation: University of Cambridge

  • Methodology State-of-the-art workshop: management of measurement reactivity in trials of interventions to improve health

    Measurement reactivity has been defined as being present where measurement results in changes in the people being measured. There is evidence which show that asking people to complete questionnaires can result in changes...

    Funded by: MRC

    Lead research organisation: University of Manchester

  • Validating generic preference-base measures of health in mental health populations and estimating mapping functions

    The NHS has to make some tough choices about what services to provide. One way to make these choices is to examine the value for money of services by looking at the costs and benefits they provide. A major problem for th...

    Funded by: MRC

    Lead research organisation: University of Sheffield

  • Identifying and critiquing different approaches to developing complex interventions (INDEX study)

    Background There is increasing recognition of the importance of carefully developing and evaluating complex interventions, the argument being that attention to these tasks will increase the chance of interventions being...

    Funded by: MRC

    Lead research organisation: University of Sheffield

Similar ARIs from other organisations

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DHSC's areas of research interest ARI 1: early action to prevent poor health outcomes Research objective: Research to understand and deliver prevention, timely diagnosis and appropriate intervention for people at increased risk of poor health (in particular obesity, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, mental health and cancer) to prevent excess deaths, improve population health (including the health of the working age population), reduce disparities and reduce reliance on health and social care. Priority research topics: Developing, evaluating and understanding how to implement interventions which prevent health problems developing, accurately identify those at risk, effectively manage risk factors and treat conditions early, and manage health problems to prevent severe disease in the 4 areas set out below. - Prevent: Interventions to prevent health problems, developing effective routes to reach those who are most at risk or marginalised, and understanding how to effectively implement proven interventions at scale (for example, antihypertensives, mental health programmes for children and young people, vaccines for cancer or workplace preventative interventions). - Identify: New ways of identifying those most at risk (for example, predictive analysis of GP records to identify those who would benefit from early intervention, new methods of cancer screening and new approaches to diagnosing the causes of chest pains). - Treat: Interventions early in the course of disease progression (for example, social prescribing, early intervention for cancer or interventions to enable people to remain in or return to work). - Manage: Interventions to improve the management of multiple long-term conditions (for example, how to manage side effects in polypharmacy), prevent acute events (such as heart attacks, strokes and mental health crises) and ensure effective rehabilitation after these events to reduce long-term illness and disability. Department of Health and Social Care, 2023
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