CIFAR shares “The Social Cure”
Life changes such as aging and declining health are a threat to any individual’s sense of self and well-being. This kind of threat becomes more and more pressing as baby-boomers approach the age of retirement.
That is why geriatric health care providers, dieticians, nurses, psychologists, gerontologists and counsellors gathered at a CIFAR “knowledge mobilization” event last year. They came to hear about “The Social Cure,” the work of Alex Haslam, a social psychologist and member of CIFAR’s Social Interactions, Identity and Well-Being program. The Social Cure maps the links between seniors, social connections and health.
“Our research reveals that life transitions such as aging and compromised health can reduce opportunities for group membership. This lack of a social network is what lowers an individual’s sense of social identity,” Dr. Haslam said. He and his collaborators have shown that simple interventions in health care that get people involved with social networks, such as organized discussion groups and clubs, can foster new social identities. These identities buffer the adverse effects of long-term care, promote recovery from heart surgery and stroke, and delay the onset of degenerative disease. The researchers also found that social networks increase an individual’s life satisfaction and improve the efficiency of the health care system.
The purpose of this knowledge transfer event was to share research and to spark collaboration between CIFAR researchers and the Research Institute for Aging (RIA), which is based at the University of Waterloo. The RIA supports research projects that use real-life environments as laboratories. Its studies take place in ten long-term care and retirement facilities with more than 3,000 residents in total.
The event marked the beginning of a new, international social network for collaboration that will help put research into aging, social connections and health, into action.
This story relates to our research program: Social Interactions, Identity and Well-Being