The Editorial this month argues for the need to fundamentally rethink how societies can look beyond the "medical" causes of disease in an effort to promote health and well-being. This follows a systematic review and a meta-analysis by Julianne Holt-Lunstad and colleagues published in PLoS Medicine in July finding that individuals' social relationships have as much influence on mortality risk as other well-established risk factors for mortality, such as smoking. Such a level of risk deserves attention at the highest possible level in determination of health policy, says the Editorial. Despite the fact that many governments have decided to cut to public spending drastically in order to reduce deficits, findings such as those by Holt-Lunstad and colleagues offer an opportunity to reorganize services to meet the needs of an increasingly complex society.
Funding: The authors are each paid a salary by the Public Library of Science, and they wrote this editorial during their salaried time.
Competing Interests: The authors' individual competing interests are at http://www.plosmedicine.org/static/editorsInterests.action . PLoS is funded partly through manuscript publication charges, but the PLoS Medicine Editors are paid a fixed salary (their salary is not linked to the number of papers published in the journal).
Citation: The PLoS Medicine Editors (2010) Social Relationships Are Key to Health, and to Health Policy. PLoS Med 7(8): e1000334. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000334
IN YOUR COVERAGE PLEASE USE THIS URL TO PROVIDE ACCESS TO THE FREELY AVAILABLE PAPER:
http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1000334
PRESS-ONLY PREVIEW OF THE ARTICLE: http://www.plos.org/press/plme-07-08-editorial.pdf
CONTACT:
PLoS Medicine Editors
Public Library of Science
medicine_editors@plos.org
Journal
PLoS Medicine