On the role of subjective well-being in mediating the relationship between spatiotemporal and health variables

Introduction: The effects of health on various activity-travel patterns have been investigated in various studies. However, it is hard to disregard that activity-travel patterns can also shape the health of individuals. The literature shows that activity-travel patterns insignificantly correlate with health parameters. It is hypothesised that there are some variables such as subjective well-being that intermediate the effects of activity-travel patterns on health. This paper aimed to investigate the role of two subjective well-being variables (daily experience and global subjective well-being) to mediate the effects of spatiotemporal variables on health. The health variables covered physical, mental and social health which refer to people's limitations to engage in various activities including social activities caused by physical, mental and emotional, and emotional problems, respectively. Method: Modified structural equation modelling is used to explore whether daily experience and global subjective well-being are intermediate variables between spatiotemporal and health variables. Results: The results confirmed that endogenous global subjective well-being mediated the effects of spatiotemporal variables on physical and social health, but not on mental health. Endogenous daily experience was not found to significantly correlate with any health parameters. Conclusion: Daily experience is a short-term (cognitive) well-being shaped by people's time and space variables, whereas global subjective well-being is a long-term well-being variable shaped by short-term variables (e.g., daily experience and daily time and space variables) and life circumstances. The long-term well-being variable was found to significantly correlate with health, but not the short-term well-being variable. Opportunities offered by spatial conditions show a higher magnitude in improving people's daily experience and global subjective well-being than the activity-travel participation variables.