City Research Online

Abstract

Background
Suffering is a distressing personal experience that may have important implications for well-being, but little is known about its population-level links with well-being. We use longitudinal survey data from the multinational Global Flourishing Study to examine prospective associations between suffering and multidimensional well-being assessed approximately 1 year later.

Methods
We analyzed two waves of nationally representative data from adults living in 23 countries and territories (N = 207,919). Following the analytic template for outcome-wide designs, we estimated a series of country-specific weighted regression analyses where each Wave 2 outcome was regressed on Wave 1 suffering (controlling for Wave 1 demographic and retrospectively recalled childhood variables). Random effects meta-analyses were used to pool country-specific estimates of associations for the 56 main outcomes encompassing psychological, social, physical, volitional, and material dimensions of well-being.

Results
We find some evidence of association between suffering and worse well-being for both composite indicators and most specific well-being indicators when country-specific estimates are pooled meta-analytically. Somewhat stronger and more consistent associations are observed for some domains (e.g., psychological well-being) than others (e.g., social participation). Pooled cross-national estimates of association generally attenuate after applying a more conservative analytic approach in which additional adjustment is made for principal components extracted from the Wave 1 outcomes. Country-specific estimates show some cross-national variation.

Conclusions
Our findings suggest that suffering is associated with worse well-being across a wide range of outcomes in diverse national contexts. Suffering may be an important consideration in research, interventions, and policies aimed at supporting population well-being.

Plain language summary
Suffering is a personal experience of distress that can feel intense or persistent. We used two waves of longitudinal survey data from 207,919 adults living in 23 countries and territories to examine whether suffering predicts well-being about 1 year later. Outcomes covered many areas of life, such as physical health, mental well-being, social relationships, and financial circumstances. We found that suffering is associated with worse outcomes in many areas, though the strength of these associations varied across countries. These findings suggest that suffering may be an important factor to consider when trying to improve well-being in different populations.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© The Authors. Published by Springer Nature. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of Creative Commons: Attribution NonCommercial NonDerivative 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Publisher Keywords:	suffering, longitudinal, multinational, population wellbeing, Global Flourishing Study
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology H Social Sciences > HM Sociology H Social Sciences > HN Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine > RA0421 Public health. Hygiene. Preventive Medicine R Medicine > RC Internal medicine > RC0321 Neuroscience. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry
Departments:	School of Health & Medical Sciences School of Health & Medical Sciences > Department of Psychology & Neuroscience
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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