ArticleFrontiers in sociology2022
The wellbeing pandemic: Outline of a contested terrain and a proposed research agenda.
Article in Frontiers in sociology, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Distressed or De-stressed? Crafting "Mental Health" in University Peer Education and Health Promotion.Culture, medicine and psychiatry · 2026Article
- Current understanding and theories of wellbeing washing in the context of workplace health and wellbeing: A scoping review protocol.MethodsX · 2025Article
- The Spanish Version of the Short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale (SWEMWBS): Evidence on Validity, Reliability, and Test of a Processual Model of Physicians' Well-Being.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Developing a typology of interventions to support doctors' mental health and wellbeing.BMC health services research · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Wellbeing has emerged as a central, if not defining, feature of contemporary social life. Yet, despite its global significance spanning the political, social and economic spectrum, there is a remarkable lack of agreement regarding the conceptualization, definition or operationalisation of wellbeing nor any clear evidence of its success as an instrument of policy. This essay explores the contested terrain of wellbeing by examining the concept in relation to emerging politics, complexities and contradictions. More specifically, the essay: (1) briefly describes the historical origins and development of wellbeing; (2) discusses how it has been reconceptualised within the context of neoliberalism; and, (3) outlines a research agenda offering three ways to investigate wellbeing including: (a) as a wicked problem; (b) as part of the process of "wellbeing washing" within state and other institutional structures and policies; and, (c) in relation to alternative futures, which might encourage us to reimagine or jettison the term altogether.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.