Approaches to Understanding Youth Well-Being

Despite young people being the population group least likely to experience the burden of disease, significant attention is paid to the “problem” of youth well-being. Young people and children are often discussed in terms of their risk status, whether “at-risk” and in need of protection, or engaged in risk-taking and in need of guidance or education. Traditionally health has been understood as the absence of disease; however, the term “well-being” is increasingly used to conjure a broader notion of physical, mental, social, material, and civic health. The attainment of “well-being” has gathered an increasingly idealized and individualized focus and has also become a catchall descriptor conjuring notions of a successful transition to adulthood. The definition of well-being itself is complex and contested. Is the state of well-being a cause or an effect, a pathway or a destination? Is it an affective state, or a social, cultural, historical, or ecological phenomenon? To what extent do youth well-being challenges differ between nations and within nations? What are the methods, measures, and standards through which it should be investigated? What are the frameworks through which it should be addressed and progressed? And what role should children and young people themselves have in shaping and leading discussions about the factors that harm or enhance their well-being? Within this broader conversation, different types of disciplinary expertise are harnessed to address concerns with youth well-being. This creates a challenge because psychologists, epidemiologists, sociologists, and educators call on different explanatory stories and metaphors through which to understand well-being. Yet each of these disciplinary traditions has something to offer to those seeking to understand and improve the health status of young people. This chapter discusses metaphors and frameworks that can be deployed when seeking to understand and address the complexity of factors that influence well-being, and outlines some of the associated strengths and limitations of each.