The health care system in the United States is generally individualist, requiring people to acquire health insurance and find a personal physician who will prescribe medication as needed for physical ailments, or a psychiatrist who may prescribe an antidepressant for mental illness. Our health is viewed as separate from our environments and from each other, as well as from socioeconomic stressors such as financial insecurity.
Now, a new movement based on an old idea is taking hold: What if in addition to prescribing medication, doctors also prescribed activities that addressed our lack of connection?
Writing about “social prescribing,” as it’s called, is journalist Julia Hotz. Her new book The Connection Cure is considered to be the U.S.’s first book exploring the science, stories, and increasing popularity of this new trend.
Hotz’s work has appeared in the The New York Times, WIRED, Scientific American, The Boston Globe, Time, and more. She helps other journalists report on the big new ideas changing the world at the Solutions Journalism Network, and spoke with YES! Senior Editor Sonali Kolhatkar on YES! Presents: Rising Up With Sonali about The Connection Cure.