Longitudinal associations of suffering with subsequent multidimensional well-being in the Global Flourishing Study

Suffering is a distressing personal experience that may have important implications for well-being, but little is known about its population-level links with well-being. We use longitudinal survey data from the multinational Global Flourishing Study to examine prospective associations between suffering and multidimensional well-being assessed approximately 1 year later.

We analyzed two waves of nationally representative data from adults living in 23 countries and territories (N = 207,919). Following the analytic template for outcome-wide designs, we estimated a series of country-specific weighted regression analyses where each Wave 2 outcome was regressed on Wave 1 suffering (controlling for Wave 1 demographic and retrospectively recalled childhood variables). Random effects meta-analyses were used to pool country-specific estimates of associations for the 56 main outcomes encompassing psychological, social, physical, volitional, and material dimensions of well-being.

We find some evidence of association between suffering and worse well-being for both composite indicators and most specific well-being indicators when country-specific estimates are pooled meta-analytically. Somewhat stronger and more consistent associations are observed for some domains (e.g., psychological well-being) than others (e.g., social participation). Pooled cross-national estimates of association generally attenuate after applying a more conservative analytic approach in which additional adjustment is made for principal components extracted from the Wave 1 outcomes. Country-specific estimates show some cross-national variation.

Our findings suggest that suffering is associated with worse well-being across a wide range of outcomes in diverse national contexts. Suffering may be an important consideration in research, interventions, and policies aimed at supporting population well-being.