Wellbeing in the ACT

Canberra has seen lots of challenges recently – from bushfires to hail to the COVID-19 pandemic, the wellbeing of Canberrans will be affected. The ACT Government has now committed to measuring Wellbeing with a series of quantitative indicators – but how do we make sure that we look after our community in these hard times? Can we work out what are the biggest predictors of high wellbeing?

The ACT Government released the Wellbeing Framework and Indicators in 2021 to provide a way to measure progress in Canberra more broadly than traditional economic measures. These data already show that major events like the bushfires can have a negative effect on the wellbeing of Canberrans, and we know that lockdowns due to the pandemic will also affect the community.

How do we use data to best understand the wellbeing of the Canberra community, and how do we know what are the best ways to protect it during emergencies? Are there particular protective factors or risk factors that are especially important to manage? And how do we predict how wellbeing of Canberrans might change in the future?