Quality of life

Quality of life (QOL) is the general well-being of individuals and societies. QOL has a wide range of contexts, including the fields of international development, healthcare, politics and employment. It is important not to mix up the concept of QOL with a more recent growing area of health related QOL (HRQOL). When we look at HRQOL we in effect look at QOL and its relationship with health.

Quality of life should not be confused with the concept of standard of living, which is based primarily on income.

Overview

Standard indicators of the quality of life include not only wealth and employment but also the built environment, physical and mental health, education, recreation and leisure time, and social belonging.

According to ecological economist Robert Costanza:

One approach, called engaged theory, outlined in the journal of Applied Research in the Quality of Life, posits four domains in assessing quality of life: ecology, economics, politics and culture. In the domain of culture, for example, it includes the following subdomains of quality of life:

Future City Competition

Future City Competition is a national competition in the United States that focuses on improving student's math, engineering, and science skills. The program is open to students in the 6th, 7th, and 8th grades who attend a public, private or home school.

The National Engineers Week Future City Competition (www.futurecity.org) is an example of problem based learning with computer simulation. It is an example of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, & Mathematics) education. The program asks 6th, 7th and 8th grade students from around the nation to team with engineer-volunteer mentors to create — first on computer and then in three-dimensional models — their visions of the city of tomorrow. The Future City Competition, organized under the National Engineers Week Foundation, has been operating under the National Engineers Week Future City Competition charter since 1992.

Aims

The aim of the National Engineers Week Future City Competition is to provide an exciting educational engineering program for sixth, seventh and eighth grade students that combines a stimulating engineering challenge with an inquiry-based application to present their vision of a city of the future.

AARP

AARP, Inc., formerly the American Association of Retired Persons, is a United States-based membership and interest group, founded in 1958 by Ethel Percy Andrus, Ph.D., a retired educator from California, and Leonard Davis, founder of Colonial Penn Group of insurance companies.

AARP is a membership organization for people age 50 and over and operates as a non-profit advocate for its members and is one of the most powerful lobbying groups in the United States.

AARP has seven affiliated organizations: AARP Foundation, a non-profit charity that helps people over age 50 at social and economic risk; AARP Institute, a non-profit charity that holds some of AARP's charitable gift annuity funds; Legal Counsel for the Elderly, a non-profit charity that provides low- or no-cost legal assistance to seniors in Washington, D.C.; AARP Experience Corps, a non-profit charity that encourages people over age 50 to mentor and tutor school children; AARP Insurance Plan, a non-profit social welfare organization that holds some of AARP's group health insurance policies; AARP Financial Services Corporation, a for-profit corporation that holds AARP's real estate; and AARP Services Inc, a for-profit corporation that provides quality control and research. According to AARP's 2008 Consolidated financial statements, AARP Services Inc. was paid $652,000,000 in royalties from insurance companies that sold products referred by AARP. AARP also received an additional $120,000,000 for the advertisements placed in its publications.