Nova Scotians will soon have access to a wealth of data about how they are doing in the areas that impact their quality of life.

The Nova Scotia Quality of Life Initiative is a multi-year project involving a broad range of organizations from across the province, led by Engage Nova Scotia.

The Initiative is going public today with the release of the 1994-2014 Nova Scotia Quality of Life Index report, available online at www.nsqualityoflife.ca.

The report, compiled by the Canadian Index of Wellbeing, measures how Nova Scotia compares to Canada across eight domains of wellbeing: living standards, education, environment, healthy populations, community vitality, leisure and culture, democratic engagement and time use.

Engage initiated this project based on responses to earlier research that asked Nova Scotians how we should measure success. While there was clear acknowledgement that a growing economy was an important part of the equation, the strongest response was to improving our quality of life.

The Index report is intended as a starting point for conversations with individuals and organizations across the province. The next step will be to consult with Nova Scotians about what quality of life means to them. This will be followed by a comprehensive, up-to-the-minute survey of thousands of Nova Scotians this coming Spring. The data will be made openly available to anyone seeking to work with it – from non-profit groups, to businesses, governments and students.

“We think this Initiative can be a game-changer for Nova Scotia,” says Engage Nova Scotia’s chief engagement officer Danny Graham.

“Our hope is, that by widening the lens through which we measure success, Nova Scotians will be able to make more informed decisions. ”

Don Bureaux, president of the Nova Scotia Community College, sees value in the initiative: “Improving our quality of life is something we can all get behind, and a key part of our mandate here at the NSCC. I think this approach to measuring success more broadly can be an accelerator for us working together to rebuild the narrative about what it means to be a Nova Scotian.”

Sara Napier, President of the Halifax United Way, says, “I think what’s exciting about the Quality of Life Initiative is that it creates a forum for us to measure our progress collectively, so that we can assess whether the things we are focused on individually are working together to make real change.”

Likewise, Mark Butler, policy director of the Ecology Action Centre says, “The EAC is interested in this Initiative because we think that by expanding the definition of progress we can encourage leaders of all stripes to take a broader and more considered view of what constitutes success, including the quality of our environment.”

 

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Source: Media Release