One More Department Governor Healey Must Establish

— co-authored with Jitendra Vyas and Dr. Krina Patel

Governor Healey should establish the nation’s first Department of Joy to make her inaugural address statement: “this is the greatest state in the nation” true for all residents.

In her inaugural address, Governor Maura Healey celebrated the Commonwealth’s history of leadership and firsts, but also recognized our significant challenges. She recognized current crises, including crises in mental health and of substance use — and the need to support student mental health.

American happiness has been trending down among adults since at least the 1990s, and among adolescents for nearly 15 years. In Massachusetts, deaths of despair have rapidly increased in recent years; as just one devastating example, age-adjusted opioid-related overdose deaths increased sixfold from 2000 to 2020. In the Commonwealth, anxiety and depression diagnoses among children ages 3 to 17 increased 50% from 2016 to 2020.

Just as the need for mental health supports is increasing, there is a crisis in the mental health workforce — leading to decreased availability of mental health resources. We need a preventative approach to foster joy and resilience for all residents to help reduce the number of people in crisis, so we can better target our stretched clinical resources.

Full population strategies to increase joy will bring other benefits too. Increasing happiness creates virtuous cycles of wealth, wellbeing, health, and strengthened democracy. Increased happiness is associated with increased lifetime earnings and greater social capital. Happier people live longer and healthier too.

How can government help? As Arthur Brooks quoted Danish politician Mogens Lykketoft, “Government cannot bring happiness, but it can eliminate the sources of unhappiness.” In eliminating sources of unhappiness — and supporting conditions for happiness to bloom, government can make a huge difference.

The State Department of Joy can begin by 1) measuring and understanding happiness; 2) scoring policies on impact on joy just as we score for economic impact; and 3) convening a multisector coalition to advance a joyful agenda.

1) Our state government collects reams of economic data to inform a variety of policies; it can do the same with happiness. Bhutan has pursued Gross National Happiness for nearly 50 years, enabled by GNH measurement. Closer to home, Somerville Massachusetts has been nationally recognized for measuring happiness since 2011 — and can provide a model.

2) Like Bhutan, Somerville uses that data to inform policy priorities. The Commonwealth’s government conducts rigorous economic analyses to drive tax policy; builds critical infrastructure to educate workers and move goods; and provides the rule of law needed for flourishing free enterprise. Similarly, government can make policy choices that create a joyful environment. The Department of Joy can score all policy proposals, just as at the federal level, the Congressional Budget Office does now. Government policies either promote or hinder joy; this would empower policymakers to be aware of, and intentional about, those impacts.

3) Finally, just as at the national level, First Lady Michelle Obama engaged every sector for Let’s Move — and helped reduce obesity nationally among 2–5 year olds in just a four year period, the Department of Joy can coordinate with people across sectors to promote state joy.

Like federal founding documents modeled after it, our Commonwealth’s Constitution recognized the importance of residents pursuing happiness. Yet our state government rarely if ever pursues evidence-based policies to enhance residents’ joy. The Healey administration can and should change that. For the sake of our health, mental health, and democracy — and because people all want to be happy — please establish our nation’s first Department of Joy.

— Justin Pasquariello is the Executive Director of the East Boston Social Centers, where they are leading a movement to significantly increase joy in community.

— Dr. Krina Patel is the inaugural Director of Community Joy at the East Boston Social Centers.

— Jitendra Vyas is the Founder & CEO of Technology Ventures, where they are developing a conversational AI platform, mybliss, for personalizing happiness.