Interventions addressing subjective well-being in ageing: Promissing approaches on individual and societal level

Subjective well-being (SWB) in aging is important not only as an indicator of positive aging, but also because of its effects on relevant outcomes for the person (e.g., health) and the community (e.g., involvements). This raises the question of how SWB of older people can be improved through interventions. Our contribution focusses on three domains for improving SWB: Optimization of resources (e.g., financial situation, autonomy), help with critical life events (e.g., widowhood, disablement), and support at the end of life. We consider reasons for optimizing SWB in these areas as well as the theoretical and empirical foundation for interventions. Among them are (1) bottom-up approaches regarding the link between domain-specific SWB (e.g., regarding health, financial situation, social relationships) and global SWB, (2) Coping approaches to critical life events frequently occuring in old age (e.g., widowhood, disablement) and (3) research on terminal decline of SWB. Against this background principal possibilities of optimizing SWB in these domains are delineated and both individual and societal (e.g., communal, national) level interventions are described.