Measures of Financial Well-being

As part of the National Cancer Institute-funded Money Health Connection Study, we gathered and tested measures of financial well-being (FWB).

The study included a transdisciplinary literature review of concepts used to measure FWB from the following fields: medicine/public health, social/behavioral sciences (e.g., psychology, sociology, and economics), social work, and consumer/family sciences.

From the review, we developed a transdisciplinary conceptual model of FWB that includes three domains: Material, Psychosocial, and Behavioral. Our conceptual model borrows from theories developed to explain disparities in health.

Following a rigorous measures development process, the study concluded with a pilot test of our survey of FWB. Psychometric analyses yielded the shorter Tucker-Seeley measure of FWB.

The measures gathered from the Money-Health Connection Study literature review are grouped by the domains in our conceptual model, shown in the diagram below.

1. Bartley M. Health Inequality. An Introduction to Theories, Concepts and Methods. Cambridge: Polity, 2004