Happiness is a new frontier of well-being also for scientists, economists and decision makers. From this awareness was born the Lugano Happiness Forum, free and open to the public, created by Harvard University in Boston, Ibsa Foundation for scientific research and the City of Lugano, in collaboration with the Università della Svizzera italiana Usi, the Lac (Lugano art and culture) and Lugano Region. The Forum, which will take place in the city of Italian Switzerland on 17 and 18 June, as part of the Culture and Health project – we read in a note – has the objective of exploring the intricate mechanisms and principles underlying happiness and human well-being to take stock of the latest theories and practices in place on the topic.
Thanks to the expert care of Vish K. Viswanath of Harvard University in Boston, director of the Lee Kum Sheung Center for Health and Happiness – supported by Silvia Misiti, Director of Ibsa Foundation, and by Luigi Di Corato, director of the Culture Division of the City of Lugano – among the topics addressed in the two days there will be: happiness and equity of access to resources, opportunities and rights, fundamental for sustainable well-being; the challenges and benefits of the intersection of technology, information, the science of happiness and related well-being factors; the intricate connections between happiness, culture and sociality. Around twenty speakers were present and came from all over the world. Among them some of the greatest international experts such as Julianne Holt-Lunstad of Brigham Young University, Garth Graham Head of Healthcare and Public Health at Google and YouTube, Karen Guggenheim CEO & Founder of Wohasu* and co-founder of the World Happiness Summit and Julia Hotz, journalist and writer, social prescribing expert.
“It is essential – explains Viswanath – to promote a profound understanding of happiness that goes beyond conventional definitions to embrace the richness of its cultural, philosophical and individual dimensions. Happiness is not just an individual pursuit, but is deeply intertwined with larger social structures and systems. By encouraging meetings between experts from different scientific disciplines, we want to reveal with this Forum what shapes and defines the search for happiness in culture, science, politics and in the daily choices of each individual. We hope that this meeting can become a recurring event, becoming a moment of international updating on the progress of science in this field and of sharing cutting-edge public policies inspired by the principles of collective happiness and well-being”.
“Studying the relationship between health, in its broadest sense, and culture, and promoting initiatives and synergies between these two worlds to improve the quality of life and well-being of people – underlines Misiti – is one of the objectives that our Foundation has been carrying forward, for several years now in collaboration with the City of Lugano, through the Culture and Health project, a project now in its fifth year and awaiting the fourth edition of the university course at the Faculty of Biomedical Sciences of the USI, which will be dedicated this year on the relationship between visual arts and health. It is in the wake of this commitment that the Lugano Happiness Forum was born, a unique event of its kind which aims to promote a greater understanding of the topic of happiness, starting from scientific evidence, but also to bring as many people as possible closer to these topics by transferring knowledge and principles through simple language accessible to all.”
The number of studies which, starting from the analysis of various factors, measure the level of happiness and quality of life of citizens has grown over the years. This proves that this is an extremely relevant topic in Western societies, especially in a climate of instability and uncertainty like the current one where it is increasingly difficult to be happy even in contexts considered the most privileged.
“We decided to take up the challenge of dedicating a Forum like this to the Lac – states Roberto Badaracco, deputy mayor and head of the culture department of the City of Lugano – in a historical moment of great complexity and strong confusion, convinced that thanks to the scientific collaboration of a of the most prestigious academic institutes in the world such as the Lee Kum Sheung Center for Health and Happiness at Harvard University, we can get concrete ideas and good practices for the benefit of our communities. Attention to health and well-being has always been at the center of our policies, so much so that Lugano is a city famously recognized for the quality of life it is able to express, not only thanks to its geographical location, but also by virtue of the efforts and investments done in recent years in the healthcare, cultural and research fields. It is no coincidence – he concludes – that Lugano is the main city of the longest-lived canton of Switzerland”.
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