Hello! I'm doing my master's degree in Econimics and Public Policy and my thesis is about building a life quality index for the city of Lisbon. My problem is: there is a lot of indexes in this world and I'm having difficulties selecting the most important or effective ones, for my purpose. Since there is no consensual definitition of Life Quality, it makes it harder for me to be selective towards them.
I'm not even sure which field best works with this concept, since its largely used within the medical field, that's not my point in this research. And economy also uses it but it doesnt seem to show any sociological base and its focused on measuring it and not describing it.
I might be wrong here. Like I said I'm feeling a bit lost and this is the first time i'm doing something like this. If any of you had experience with this subject/field I would be very grateful for any insight.
You might start by taking a look at the work that was done to develop the World Health Organization's WHOQual index. Their goal was to generate a scale that could be used on world wide basis to measure quality of life (not just health-related items).
Note that I am not say you should use the WHOQual, just that there is a well-documented history for the development of that particular scale.