In this article, the authors introduce the concept of consumer well-being (CWB), address the distinction between consumer satisfaction and CWB, identify several conceptualizations of CWB, and briefly describe the five articles making up this special issue on CWB.

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college student quality of life, college student well-being, quality of college life of students, university student quality of life, university student well-being,

Results from a mail survey of respondents aged sixty to ninety-four suggest that psychographic dimensions of youthfulness and identification with old age constitute effective inner-age research variables, especially to those seeking to study older populations. The two specific dimensions explored are: "perceived youth," a magnitude measure of the proportional discrepancy between chronological and cognitive ages; and "feeling-old," which inversely measured youth through reliance on a six-point Likert agree/disagree statement: "I feel old...." In addition to the obvious inverse relationship between these inner-ages, research established trait covariation relative to an increase in perceived youth coincidental with a rejection of a feeling-old identity, corresponding to increases in "happiness, own-health rating, being venturesome, giving advice, self-esteem, social activity, and keeping-in-shape," as well as decreases in "taking advice, being a homebody, and having health worries."

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their doctors as partners in this endeavor. The underlying assumption of these programs is that these people will be healthier and more satisfied with life. While these initiatives sound promising, there is little evidence that increased preventive health knowledge improves a person's health and raises his or her level of life satisfaction. Currently, there is a lack of research that has examined these health relationships. Our goal in this study is to investigate the nature of these relationships to shed some insight on the idea that we all have some personal responsibility in improving not only our own QOL, but the QOL for the community. THE AGING POPULATIONAn imminent threat to community health is the aging population. As the baby boomers become older and live longer, the occurrence of chronic illnesses such as heart disease, arthritis, diabetes, and asthma increase. In the United Kingdom, for example, the Department of Health estimates that two-thirds to three-quarters of all people older than seventy-five years suffer from chronic illness; this is three times the rate of chronic illness for people aged sixteen to twenty-four. Older patients, particularly those with chronic illnesses, require more contact with health care providers than do their healthy, younger counterparts. For the over-sixty-four age group, visits to the doctor and spending on personal pharmaceuticals increase substantially. Hoover et al. (2002) report that per annum medical expenditure for the over-sixty-four age group is $7,365 (1996 dollars), and in the last year of life this number jumps to $37,581. With the boomers moving from the preelderly stage to the elderly stage and living longer, the impact on the health care system can be imposing.In recent years, there has been an increasing number of programs developed by health care providers and public domain entities to enlighten consumers about the benefits of learning more about healthy behaviors. In this study, the authors share a model developed and tested to explore the relationships among an individual's health knowledge, health, and overall quality of life (QOL) assessment. Data were collected as part of a large mail survey. Results support the relationships hypothesized and provide preliminary support for the notion of improving QOL by creating "expert" patients. These results have implications for public policy and future research.