Let’s work together to create a happier world
The Happier Lives Institute connects donors, researchers, and policymakers with the most cost-effective opportunities to increase global wellbeing.
Double your donation on Giving Tuesday
Our recommended charities for 2023 are:
StrongMinds, a non-profit providing cheap, effective treatment for women struggling with depression in Uganda and Zambia.
Against Malaria Foundation, which funds, and helps coordinate, the distribution of long-lasting insecticidal bednets to help prevent malaria in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, South and Central America, and Oceania.
Double your donation on Giving Tuesday
Our recommended charities for 2023 are:
StrongMinds, a non-profit providing cheap, effective treatment for women struggling with depression in Uganda and Zambia.
Against Malaria Foundation, which funds, and helps coordinate, the distribution of long-lasting insecticidal bednets to help prevent malaria in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, South and Central America, and Oceania.
Measuring what matters
Most people agree that happiness matters.
You might think it is the only thing that matters.
Over the last 30 years, pioneering academics in economics, philosophy, and psychology have tested and developed reliable measures of happiness and life satisfaction.
Today, large population surveys allow us to measure and track wellbeing across the world. We can stop relying on measures of wealth or health as our best guess for how people’s lives are going.
But what is wellbeing and how can we measure it?
You can make a difference
The cost-effective interventions we’ve identified may surprise you.
Our research shows that treating depression in low-income countries is nine times more cost-effective than providing direct cash transfers.
Our latest news and research
Converting measures of mental health and wellbeing into WELLBYs
This page is under construction and will be updated soon. Read more
August 2024 interim update to ‘Talking through depression: The cost-effectiveness of psychotherapy in LMICs, revised and expanded’
In November 2023, we published Version 3 of our psychotherapy analysis. This was a working report in which we estimated the effects of psychotherapy in low- and middle-income countries, as well as the cost-effectiveness of two psychotherapy charities: StrongMinds and Friendship Bench. In the first part of 2024, we have updated several parts of the analysis. This present, interim report, Version 3.5, describes the changes we have made so far. Our analysis suggests that both StrongMinds and ... Read more
Celebrating Five Years of the Happier Lives Institute: Five Lessons We’ve Learned
To my surprise and delight, the Happier Lives Institute (HLI) is now five years old. When we started on this ambitious, idealistic project of finding and sharing the most impactful, evidence-based ways to improve happiness for others, I would have been delighted to last one year, let alone five. To celebrate, I’m sharing five lessons from our journey so far. Read more
