New GWI Research: Surprising Relationship between Wellness Tourism and Spa Spending and Health Outcomes The GWI’s new report, “Health, Happiness, and the Wellness Economy: An Empirical Analysis,” is the first global study of how spending on wellness (at both the national and sector level) impacts happiness and health outcomes. A collaboration with a key author and statistician of the World Happiness Report, the study…
A first-ever study (just published in JAMA Psychiatry) compared medication to meditation for generalized anxiety disorder, finding the two methods work equally well at reducing symptoms. Half of the study participants were given an antidepressant commonly prescribed for anxiety (Lexapro), while the other half participated in a mindfulness-based stress reduction program. Both groups reported a 20% reduction in symptoms. Side effects were far more common…
The Complex Relationship between Money & Happiness: How Much Is Too Little, Too Much? By Thierry Malleret, economist MONEY, FINANCIAL WELLNESS AND HAPPINESS: An obvious link exists between money and subjective wellbeing (happiness), but only up to a certain threshold which economists and psychologists have a hard time precisely identifying. Anyone without money will corroborate that financial wellness is the conduit to other forms of…
GWI’s New Research: The First to Make the Case for Why We Desperately Need Wellness Policy GWI recently released its new report “Defining Wellness Policy,” the first research to make a compelling, evidence-backed argument as to why wellness policy is so direly needed now. It explains how a new focus on wellness policy could complement–but also fill the glaring gaps left by–both current public…
New White House Research: Poor Financial Wellbeing and Obesity Are Tightly Connected By Thierry Malleret, economist FINANCIAL WELLBEING AND OBESITY: The recent, historic “White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health” in the US may shift the public policy discourse on obesity more widely by highlighting the interconnected nature of financial wellbeing and physical wellbeing. They are largely one and the same, with new research…
A Fractured Wellness Market: Both Super-Expensive and Free, Simple Wellness Will Rise By Thierry Malleret, economist HIGH-END WELLNESS: WHERE WILL IT END? The most recent Trendium from the GWI’s sister organization, the Global Wellness Summit, is about the post-pandemic surge in “super-expensive wellness”: the seemingly never-ending expansion of very high-priced wellness products and services that benefit the upper decile in terms of income and wealth.…
