Introducing the Official Journal of the International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies: Applied Research in Quality of Life (ARQOL)

Abstract

The editors are very pleased to bring to the quality-of-life research community a new journal, Applied Research in Quality of Life (ARQOL). ARQOL focuses on publishing conceptual and methodological papers dealing with quality-of-life studies in the applied disciplines of the social and behavioral sciences. The field of qualityof-life studies is an interdisciplinary program of research focusing on the conceptualization and measurement of concepts related to quality of life and social indicators. Examples of concepts directly related to quality of life and social indicators include happiness, subjective wellbeing, life satisfaction, the good life, the good society, economic wellbeing, family wellbeing, quality of work life, community quality of life, spiritual wellbeing, leisure wellbeing, social wellbeing, emotional wellbeing, psychological wellbeing, and quality of home life, among others. These concepts are applied to specific geographic populations (e.g., quality of life of specific countries, regions, states, provinces, and trading blocks) and demographic groups (e.g., quality of life of children, quality of life of the elderly, quality of life of the poor, quality of life of the homeless, quality of life of the disabled, and quality of life of women). The same concepts are applied to specific institutional sectors (e.g., travel and tourism, hospitality, sports and recreation, food and nutrition, clothing and textiles, architecture, landscape design, education, transportation, telecommunications, healthcare, business administration, public administration, social work, management, marketing, agricultural economics, environmental science, and economic development). ARQOL focuses on applications of quality-of-life concepts to institutional sectors as described above.