The Impact of Culture on the Individual Subjective Well-Being of the Italian Population: An Exploratory Study

The study explores the relationship between access to culture and individual psychological wellbeing, a cross-sectional survey conducted on a sample of 1500 residents of Italy in the autumn of 2008 (779 women and 721 men, average age 46.5 years). Using a measure like the Psychological General Well-Being Index-PGWBI as well as additional questionnaires, the analysis suggests that culture has an important role as a determinant of individual psychological wellbeing (showing a direct correlation between culture activities and positive PGWBI scores) and that cultural policies aimed at favoring cultural access can also be considered health policies.