Research on Tap: Human Flourishing in Diverse Populations and Contexts

What does it mean to flourish? How can people living in conditions of physical, psychological, or material adversity attain personal growth, purpose, happiness, social connectedness, and generativity – when these states may appear elusive, if not impossible? How can social institutions, including education, the workplace, and religion, as well as natural environments bolster or impede flourishing?

This multidisciplinary panel of scholars and practitioners will share research that reveals the personal strengths, community resources, and public supports that engender flourishing in diverse populations, including political refugees, patients with terminal illness, and persons living with economic precarity. The presenters use diverse methods, such as population-based surveys, ethnography, big data, in-depth interviews, and community-based participatory research. The audience will learn about the components of flourishing, how members of different communities perceive and define flourishing, obstacles to flourishing, and interventions and investments that may help all communities to flourish.

Panelists span the BU campus, and include recipients of a grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation program Grand Challenges for Human Flourishing.