Background

“The People Project” was formed after a community-wide needs assessment identified mental health as a priority. Community and public health leaders aspired to move their focus from a mental health crisis-driven response to a focus on prevention and community well-being. With guidance from the researcher, the PERMA model (positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment, (Seligman, 2011) was chosen as the framework for the project and five interventions were designed with the goal of increasing well-being.  The interventions were research-informed and included: Gratitude, Kindness, Social Connection, Practicing Values, and Finding your Flow.

Aims

Each intervention was designed to address two pillars of well-being, with each pillar being targeted twice. For example, the gratitude intervention targeted the pillars of “positive emotion” and “relationships.” The aim of this study was to test the effectiveness of the interventions in increasing the PERMA dimensions.

Method

The project was implemented as a worksite wellness initiative and over three years, 37 worksites participated across four waves. Participants completed surveys before and after the training using the PERMA Profiler (Butler & Kern, 2015).  There were 1,210 responses at pretest and 613 responses at posttest. Due to the anonymity of respondents, there was no way to match up individual respondent data from pre to post. Instead, at each timepoint (pre and post) responses were aggregated to the site level by taking their mean. Each site was then weighted by its proportion of respondents relative to the total mean number of respondents across pre and post.

Results

Results showed that there were significant improvements in all five PERMA measures, with effect sizes ranging from medium (0.46) to large (0.89). Negative emotion also decreased, and happiness and perceived health increased. Loneliness was the only measure not to show a significant change.

Conclusion

Results suggest the simple interventions in the “People Project” were effective overall and warrant further research including understanding which specific interventions were most effective.