When measuring wellbeing, should you strictly adhere to what people think matters to them?

CHE RESEARCH BITES

By Samia Badji, Dennis Petrie, Anthony Harris and Gang Chen

17 February, 2026

As governments increasingly look beyond economic growth to measure national wellbeing, a key challenge has emerged: how to account for the life factors individuals consider most important. Asking people to rate the importance of different aspects of life can add complexity, and it remains unclear how best to incorporate those ratings into wellbeing measures.

A new study drawing on responses from 1,881 National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) participants offers fresh insight. Researchers analysed how people with disability scored the Disability Wellbeing Index (DWI)—a tool designed to measure their subjective wellbeing—alongside how important each component of the index was to them personally.

The study found that incorporating these importance ratings slightly strengthened the DWI’s alignment with other established wellbeing measures. This suggests that recognising the personal value individuals place on different aspects of life can improve the accuracy of wellbeing assessments.

However, the improvement was modest, and the researchers identified several alternative methods that perform well even when importance ratings are unavailable. One unexpected finding was that including all life aspects—rather than excluding those participants labelled “not important”—produced better results.

Overall, the research indicates that while personal values can enhance wellbeing measures, policymakers and researchers should be cautious about discarding factors deemed unimportant by respondents, as these elements still appear to influence overall wellbeing.

Badji S, Petrie D, Harris A & Chen G. Incorporating importance weights to measure the subjective wellbeing of people with disability? A comparison of several aggregation methods January 2026. Accepted for Publication. Social Indicators Research.

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CHE Research Bites are short, easy-to-understand summaries of our recent academic papers highlighting new evidence and insights on topical issues in the health and healthcare sectors.

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