Happiness is good for your health, so what are councils doing about it?

Public health has been in the hands of local government for a little over a year now, spawning some exciting projects if few immediate results. From a ban on super-strength ciders in Ipswich to free access to sport in Islington, it's been a rare opportunity for councils to exert some personality over their choices.

So far most public health work has focused on obvious areas of need: stop smoking campaigns, sexual health advice for young people, new ways to tackle growing rates of obesity and stem the rise in diabetes diagnoses. It's all important, and should continue, but though budgets are tight there's still something missing.

The marketing bumf that local authorities produce on public health talk not only about health challenges with measurable rates of success – a stem in the rising tide of type two diabetes diagnoses, for example – but the broader issue of general wellbeing. But is anything really being done about it?

To answer that question we need to understand what wellbeing is. The New Economics Foundation has carried out research looking at how wellbeing affects individuals, communities and businesses and its impact on economic performance. It identifies five "ways to wellbeing": connect, be active, take notice, keep learning and give.

These ideas help people understand the simple steps they can take to improve their lives, but they also have important roles to play in wellbeing at work or in schools. Given that councils now say they are responsible for improving community wellbeing, it's also interesting to apply them directly to the public health agenda.

Two of the five are already accounted for. Keeping communities active is the mainstay of public health agendas with most councils finding new ways to get the nation's potatoes off their proverbial and literal couches and out into the community, whether through free access to gyms and sports centres or new community exercise groups.

It's not just the public health team that help us to connect with one another; planning departments design open public space to encourage interaction, library services bring us together, schemes aimed at specific groups (older people, young mothers) help us make new ties with like-minded local people. Where more can be done is in cementing those relationships and actively preventing isolation.

Jonathan Carr-West makes an interesting point when he suggests it will become the job of councils to help us make friends. Library bookgroups and other special interest gatherings start doing this job – why not launch an equivalent of singles nights where local people, particularly those new to an area, can meet each other and build links?

That still leaves three issues unaddressed, but they are all interlinked. Lifelong learning is too often sidelined as part of further education policy, but it is important for all residents to have access to new ways to learn and develop. One way people can learn new skills (and meet new people, for that matter) is by volunteering, getting involved in local causes – and that also affords a space to reflect and think about ourselves and others, to "take notice" of what goes on around us and within our communities.

All these things could be achieved by creating simple projects which, by no coincidence, help councils to tackle the funding crisis in critical public services such as social care. Here's an example: let's encourage residents to give an hour of their time a week to take part in a skills-sharing group activity which limits isolation for older people. You could even give participants a council tax discount for taking part. This, not just preventing teenage pregnancy, is the job of public health.

For those who think all this is new age bunkum, research suggests that wellbeing has as much of an impact on our overall health than income. High levels of personal wellbeing can add seven and a half years to your life expectancy. Poor wellbeing, meanwhile, can cause many of the problems that public health is trying to overcome such as alcohol and drug abuse. It needn't cost much, but thinking creatively about how to access people and help them achieve the "five ways" is firmly within the remit of public health.

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