Wellbeing is a culturally bound construct shaped by a person’s experiences, beliefs and values. Positive wellbeing is an important resource for having a life that is fulfilling and meaningful. First Nations peoples’ cultural understandings of health and wellbeing are strongly interconnected and relational in nature, and often have limited association with proxy measures of wellbeing commonly used in health and mental health settings. This holistic conceptualisation of wellbeing differs markedly from prevalent Western biomedical constructs of illness and disease that underpin Australia’s health care system, and from existing measures and indicators currently used to assess quality of life and wellbeing.

The lack of appropriate wellbeing measures for First Nations peoples makes it difficult to accurately determine the need for and efficacy of wellbeing interventions and programs for First Nations individuals and populations. Once appropriate wellbeing measures are available across a range of health-related settings, programs and interventions can be designed, tailored, and evaluated with far greater specificity and accuracy.

This critical gap in wellbeing measurement has driven our team’s innovative work over the past seven years in developing Australia’s first culturally grounded, strengths-based wellbeing measures for First Nations adults, youth, and children. This presentation reports on the work involved in developing the What Matters suite of wellbeing measures, led by First Nations and non-First Nations researchers from the University of Queensland and the University of Sydney.

This presentation outlines the progress of each of the What Matters measures and will highlight what is being discovered about the foundations of wellbeing for different First Nations age-groups. Lessons learned about culturally appropriate engagement and research methods that ensure that the voices of First Nations people are central to conduct of our work will also be shared.