Anneyce Knight

Response to Dr Alain Braillon

We thank Dr Braillon for his critical response to our article, ‘Well-being: its influence and local impact on public health’. We feel that it is necessary to provide some counterarguments to his main responses. Braillon suggests that we are unaware of the many indexes which exist to measure health and well-being across various domains. However, we make frequent references toways andmeans of assessing and measuring well-being throughout. He offers generously made references to the 2012 Well-Being Index State Rankings and the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care, of which we are also aware. However, we are also aware that these are American psychological/functional indexes/measurements and a closer reading of the article would have informed you that we are focusing on policy and strategy in the UK, not the US.Wewere not primarily describing indexes and measurements either, but analysing the wider theoretical and policy effects of wellbeing in the UK context, beyond psychological domains. We are rather perplexed by Braillon’s belief that actors, individuals and policy communities are unable to develop and refine concepts of well-being, given the UK evidence suggests that people are achieving just that. We think this is very important in developing further theoretical and policy work for use by healthcare professionals, lay individuals and communities.