On February 24, 2021, the Department of Public Health Sciences at Queen’s University hosted a public lecture by CIMVHR Medical Advisor Dr. James Thompson titled Well-being of military personnel in transition to post-military life: concepts and measurement.

Dr. Thompson delivered his virtual lecture to an audience of students, faculty members, representatives from the Canadian Armed Forces, and many Veterans and members of the public. He discussed “well-being” as a common policy perspective that has been adopted by Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) and the importance of supporting Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) military personnel to transition to non-combat military roles, or to civilian life. Measurements of well-being, quality of life and other assessments are of interest to governments tasked with parcelling out limited resources for the populations they are responsible for. The well-being of serving military members, Veterans and their families is critical, because unlike the rest of the population, military members can be lawfully ordered into harm’s way, and their mandate is to protect our nation and its people. Though there are many benefits associated with military service, it is strenuous and subject to risks and inequities. This presentation was designed to help participants understand and view well-being concepts from multiple perspectives and disciplines; to describe a multi-domain concept for “well-being”; to apply principles for measuring multi-domain well-being; and how to use multi-domain well-being concepts in their work.

Dr. Thompson is the former Research Medical Advisor at Veterans Affairs Canada and has held faculty positions at the University of Calgary, Dalhousie University and Queen’s University. Before a career in medicine, he served as an infantry reservist in the Canadian Armed Forces.