Health Is Not Lonely

I think we mostly knew this already. Pretty much everything we do fits into our social sphere, and any addictions we have are likely to be found in our friends too. This can be a good thing and a bad thing, and it depends entirely on the mentality of your social setting. If your friends are gun ho on doing crazy shit, you're probably going to want to go along with them or get new friends. Alternately, if your friends all decide they all want to fix something in their lives, and make a go of it as a group, you have a greater support structure in place if you decide to be part of that effort to (for instance) quit smoking.

Yes, according to the New York Times (so you know it's true)

"Smokers tend to quit in groups... which means smoking cessation programs should work best if they focus on groups rather than individuals. It also means that people may help many more than just themselves by quitting: quitting can have a ripple effect prompting an entire social network to break the habit."

I suspect that this principle applies to almost any aspect of human health. This links into Fruzi's post about community health clubs. In this context, Christopher Alexander's model can be broadened to deal with any addiction or trend we see as negative in the community, and possibly even to detect illnesses lurking beneath the surface. We've become a very transient people, and the neighbourhood we grew up in may not be the one we will spend even the next 10 years in. As such, local issues change too quickly to relocate specialised healthcare whenever the community demographic changes.

A community health club should be a platform for self directed health rather than a static formula. It should enable people to address things in their lives, bring their friends along (maybe make new friends), and to do so in a setting where support and consultation is available from people who are experienced or qualified to give good advice. It should encourage participants to bring their own time and effort into the arena, so that we can have a Wikipedia/Facebook/Flickr solution rather than a Britannica solution.


Big Social Factor in Quitting Smoking [New York Times]