HEALTH AND WELL-BEING
Associate Professor Maria Hennessy is the lead for research projects in this stream. The Health and Well-being stream has a focus on the evidence-based assessment of well-being and its practical integration with multidisciplinary health and mental health research and practice.
CURRENT PROJECTS
Physical well-being and mental health
This research explores the understanding of physical well-being as well-being, not merely the absence of mobility issues or pain. This project will investigate holistic understandings of levels of physical well-being, and their relationships to mental health.
Reliability and validity of the Three-Dimensional Meaning Scale (3DM) in a multicultural sample
Meaning in life is a key component of well-being with new research proposing a three-dimensional model of meaning comprising significance, comprehension, and purpose (Martela & Steger, 2023). This project will investigate examine the reliability and validity of the newly developed Three-Dimensional Meaning (3DM) scale in a multicultural sample.
How does character strengths use relate to mental health?
Understanding the dynamics of the relationship between character strengths use and mental health is a key question for research and practice. The reliability and validity of a new measure of overuse, underuse and optimal use of character strengths, and its relationship with dual-continuua models of mental health are investigated in a multicultural adult community sample.
Understanding the search for meaning in life
Recent research has highlighted key differences between researcher-led and lay-person perspectives of well-being (Roache, 2023). This project will explore lay-person conceptions of search for meaning in life using a mixed-methods approach.