Relationships and Health

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Our social relationships – including between intimate partners, families, friends, and within communities - are essential to health. People with strong and positive connections to others tend to live healthier and longer lives. Yet, some relationships can be bad for our health, including those that are violent or that influence us to take risks. Researchers in this programme seek to understand how social relationships and health are linked. The relationships team studies both positive and negative influences but are particularly interested in how we might make use of the positive influences to improve health. The research focuses particularly on groups at highest risk of poor health, perhaps because they are excluded from broader society, or living in areas with few resources. The team views relationships between people as just one part of a bigger system of influences on health. The programme uses different approaches to study and improve health. This includes talking to people about their experiences; advanced statistical methods to analyse survey results; holding meetings with community members to understand local health issues and design solutions; studies to find out how well these solutions work; and supporting other researchers and communities to use the best solutions. In doing so, the team constantly looks for ways to improve their methods and works with scientists internationally to strengthen understanding of social relationships in public health.