The Cure Within by Anne Harrington

Author:Anne Harrington
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2008-05-06T16:00:00+00:00

To begin to find out, Berkman agreed to undertake a dissertation project that involved analyzing an already existing set of data from a 1965 public health survey of a large group of residents of Alameda County, California. Because the survey had followed then-recent World Health Organization recommendations that “health” be defined by reference not just to physical but also to mental and social well-being, the participants in the 1965 survey—close to seven thousand people—had answered questions about their marital state, number of friends, and memberships in religious and voluntary organizations. In 1974, researchers had collected the nine-year mortality data on this group of people, but no one had thought to look for possible links between differences in the density of social networks and different mortality outcomes. Berkman’s job now was to do just that.

What she found was stunning: in every age and sex category, people who in 1965 had reported the fewest social ties were, nine years later, up to three times more likely to have died than those who had reported the most social ties. This correlation held true even after factors such as socioeconomic status, smoking, alcohol use, obesity, physical activity, and use of preventive health services were accounted for.21 Berkman’s methodology was rigorous, and her results seemed unequivocal. Other epidemiological studies, looking at other populations, would later confirm them.22 Soon there seemed to be no real room for doubt: having friends, being married, belonging to civic organizations, and belonging to a church were all conducive to healthier and longer life.

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