Dataset Information

Environmental volunteer well-being: Managers' perception and actual well-being of volunteers.

ABSTRACT: Background: Environmental volunteering can increase well-being, but environmental volunteer well-being has rarely been compared to participant well-being associated with other types of volunteering or nature-based activities. This paper aims to use a multidimensional approach to well-being to explore the immediately experienced and later remembered well-being of environmental volunteers and to compare this to the increased well-being of participants in other types of nature-based activities and volunteering. Furthermore, it aims to compare volunteer managers' perceptions of their volunteers' well-being with the self-reported well-being of the volunteers. Methods: Onsite surveys were conducted of practical conservation and biodiversity monitoring volunteers, as well as their control groups (walkers and fieldwork students, respectively), to measure general well-being before their nature-based activity and activity-related well-being immediately after their activity. Online surveys of current, former and potential volunteers and volunteer managers measured remembered volunteering-related well-being and managers' perceptions of their volunteers' well-being. Data were analysed based on Seligman's multidimensional PERMA ('positive emotion', 'engagement', 'positive relationship', 'meaning', 'achievement') model of well-being. Factor analysis recovered three of the five PERMA elements, 'engagement', 'relationship' and 'meaning', as well as 'negative emotion' and 'health' as factors. Results: Environmental volunteering significantly improved positive elements and significantly decreased negative elements of participants' immediate well-being, and it did so more than walking or student fieldwork. Even remembering their volunteering up to six months later, volunteers rated their volunteering-related well-being higher than volunteers rated their well-being generally in life. However, volunteering was not found to have an effect on overall mean well-being generally in life. Volunteer managers did not perceive the significant increase in well-being that volunteers reported. Conclusions: This study showed how environmental volunteering immediately improved participants' well-being, even more than other nature-based activities. It highlights the benefit of regarding well-being as a multidimensional construct to more systematically understand, support and enhance volunteer well-being.

SUBMITTER: Kragh G

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5288684 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Environmental volunteer well-being: Managers' perception and actual well-being of volunteers.

Kragh Gitte G Stafford Rick R Curtin Susanna S Diaz Anita A

F1000Research 20161116

<i>Background</i>: Environmental volunteering can increase well-being, but environmental volunteer well-being has rarely been compared to participant well-being associated with other types of volunteering or nature-based activities. This paper aims to use a multidimensional approach to well-being to explore the immediately experienced and later remembered well-being of environmental volunteers and to compare this to the increased well-being of participants in other types of nature-based activiti ...[more]

PMID: 28184285

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Project description:BackgroundResidential moves (displacement) owing to climate- and weather-related disasters may significantly impact mental health. Despite the growing risk from climate change, health impacts of environmental-mobility remain understudied.ObjectivesWe assessed the effects of displacement on the association between landslides and changes in perceived mental well-being in Banjarnegara, Indonesia. We also investigated whether sociodemographics (age, sex, level of education, household-level income, or employment in agriculture) and landslide characteristics (number and severity of landslides) were associated with differing odds of relocation after experiencing landslides.MethodsIn this cross-sectional study, we surveyed 420 individuals who experienced landslides between 2014 and 2018 to assess perceived changes in mental well-being, comparing after landslide exposure to before landslide exposure. We used a novel six-item measure that was created in collaboration with the local community to compare perceived changes between those who were displaced by landslides and those who were not displaced, using logistic and multinomial regressions adjusted for sociodemographic characteristics. We then assessed whether the odds of displacement differed based on sociodemographic characteristics and landslide exposure characteristics, using logistic regressions.ResultsThose who were displaced were more likely than those who were not displaced to report perceived increases in economic stability [odds ratio (OR)=3.06; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.45, 6.46], optimism (OR=4.01; 95% CI: 1.87, 8.61), safety (OR=2.71; 95% CI: 1.44, 5.10), religiosity (OR=1.92; 95% CI: 1.03, 3.65), and closeness with community (OR=1.90; 95% CI: 1.10, 3.33) after landslides compared with before their first landslide during the study period. More frequent landslide exposures were associated with reduced odds of relocation, but more severe landslides were associated with increased odds of relocation.DiscussionThese findings suggest that landslides affect the mental well-being not only of those who are displaced but also of those who are left behind. Further, this work supports the need for community-based participatory research to fully capture the health impacts of environmental mobility. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP9391.

Project description:BackgroundSocietal development and a competitive corporate climate have resulted in increased emphasis on performance management (PM) but also sustainability and health challenges in working life. Opportunities for employee well-being, development and performance are thus highly relevant for organisations and society. PM includes a manager-employee dialogue process and is identified as a complex challenge when combined with employee development and well-being. Managers have a key role in PM, and research in collaboration with practitioners in specific contexts is needed. An exploratory study, focusing on managers' experience of dialogues between managers and employees in practice, was therefore conducted in collaboration with an inter-municipal corporation company in southern Sweden.MethodsA qualitative study with an inductive design, supported by semi-structured focus group interviews, was chosen based on the exploratory character of the study. Thirty-five managers were approached in the company and 15, of varying age and managerial experience, agreed to participate. Staff Development Dialogues (SDD) were used in the company PM model to facilitate employee development, performance, and well-being. Data was analysed using conventional qualitative content analysis to obtain new insights without using pre-set classifications.ResultsThe analysis resulted in three categories of SDD experiences: SDD in a business context; Managers in relation to SDD; and Employees in relation to SDD. The findings revealed varying SDD experiences as well as approaches, and analytical themes were considered in relation to the organisational context and the specific SDD content and process. The study showed the importance of SDD adaptation and a well-being perspective in the dialogues was related to relational aspects and the manager-employee approach to SDDs.DiscussionThe findings confirm the complexity and challenges of PM including development and well-being. Adaptation to specific departments as well as employees is important, and using the same PM strategy throughout an organisation can be questioned. The identified link between a relational approach and a well-being perspective indicates a missed opportunity for systematic workplace health promotion. Strengthening the well-being perspective can, thus, improve the quality of an SDD model, which in turn can facilitate the creation of sustainable workplaces and better fulfilment of employers' health-related obligations for systematic work environment management.

Project description:Human well-being is often an overarching goal in environmental decision-making, yet assessments are often limited to economic, health, or ecological endpoints that are more tangible to measure. Composite indices provide a comprehensive approach to measuring well-being in terms of multi-dimensional components, such as living standards, health, education, safety, and culture. For example, the Human Well-Being Index (HWBI) framework, initially developed for the U.S. fifty states, was recently applied to quantify human well-being for Puerto Rico. However, the paucity of data at spatial scales finer than state or county levels, particularly for social metrics, poses a major limitation to quantifying well-being at neighborhood-scales relevant to decision-making. Here we demonstrate a spatial interpolation method to fill in missing fine-scale data where coarser-scale data is available. Downscaling from municipio (i.e., county-equivalent) to census-tract revealed a greater range of variability in well-being scores across Puerto Rico, in particular, a larger proportion of low well-being scores. Furthermore, while some components of wellbeing (e.g., Education, Health, Leisure Time, Safety and Security, Social Cohesion) showed consistent improvement over time from 2000-2017 across Puerto Rico, others (e.g., Connection to Nature, Cultural Fulfillment, Living Standards) were variable among census tracts, increasing for some but declining for others. We use a case study in the San Juan Bay estuary watershed to illustrate how approaches to quantify baseline levels of well-being can be used to explore potential impacts of management actions on communities, including to identify environmental justice inequalities among neighborhoods. Spatial clustering analysis was used to identify statistically significant cold or hot spots in well-being. This study demonstrates how indicators of well-being, coupled with interpolation methods to overcome limitations of data availability, can help to monitor long-term changes over time and to better communicate the potential value of ecosystem restoration or resource management.

Dataset Information

Environmental volunteer well-being: Managers' perception and actual well-being of volunteers.

Publications

Environmental volunteer well-being: Managers' perception and actual well-being of volunteers.

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