Relationships and Health

我们的社会关系——包括亲密伴侣、家庭、朋友之间以及社区内的关系——对健康至关重要。与他人有密切和积极联系的人往往活得更健康、更长寿。然而，有些关系可能对我们的健康有害，包括那些暴力的或影响我们冒险的关系。这个项目的研究人员试图了解社会关系和健康之间的联系。人际关系小组研究了积极和消极的影响，但对我们如何利用积极的影响来改善健康特别感兴趣。这项研究特别关注那些健康状况不佳的风险最高的群体，也许是因为他们被排除在更广泛的社会之外，或者生活在资源匮乏的地区。研究小组认为人与人之间的关系只是影响健康的一个更大系统的一部分。该方案采用不同的方法来研究和改善健康状况。这包括与人们谈论他们的经历；采用先进的统计方法分析调查结果；与社区成员举行会议，了解当地的卫生问题并设计解决方案；研究这些解决方案的效果；并支持其他研究人员和社区使用最佳解决方案。在此过程中，该小组不断寻找改进其方法的方法，并与国际科学家合作，加强对公共卫生中的社会关系的理解。

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.