Although some scientists are skeptical about the notion that happiness can improve health, researchers at the new Lee Kum Sheung Center for Health and Happiness at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health hope to amass enough evidence to show that there’s indeed a link between emotional and physical health.
Since happiness can encompass a range of factors—physical, emotional, social—one of the Center’s first goals will be to catalog and standardize measures used in the study of happiness. “There are more than 100 different measures already in use for the various forms of well-being,” said Laura Kubzansky, Lee Kum Kee Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences and co-director of the happiness center, in the November-December 2016 issue of Harvard Magazine. “And it may be that the instrument we need for our research does not yet exist.”
Another line of research at the Center will focus on the impact of movies, television, advertising, and social media on health and happiness. Kasisomayajula “Vish” Viswanath, Lee Kum Kee Professor of Health Communication, noted that following news about negative events—war, terrorism, crime—may influence people’s sense of well-being. “If you feel that the entire world is coming apart, that affects your emotions,” he said.
Read the Harvard Magazine article: Can Happiness Make You Healthier?