many thanks for the responses to my request on the above
those received so far appear below
i'll post any further replies
- i hope they'll be lots more -
at the end of this month
thanks again
rob
_________________________________________________________
George Davey-Smith and others did an article about sex
lowering mortality in the Christmas BMJ!! As such it may
not be serious (I haven't read it yet) but it'll probably
liven up your day anyway!!
_________________________________________________________
I'm sure there is lots of evidence around to back up a gut reaction of
'yes' -how much is EBM I dont know.
Research does exist, I believe, on romanian babies in orphanages and
touch and lullabies; those not getting this grew much slower.....sorry
havnt a reference to hand, but hope useful..Also, you might look up
touch in nursing as a search..
_________________________________________________________
It IS healthier, but do we need to prove it?, if you do
need to, then, we might need to prove that FOOD is
necessary for helthier living? . I think the evidence cased
in this case has gone too far.

take the extreme , seperated, single or divorced have high
risk of suicide, sure the midline will give many ref.
_________________________________________________________
This surely depends on the social relationships.
Joking apart, many of the "social relationships" available to
inner-city youngsters are likely to pose health and psychological
risks. You need to control carefully for environment.
_________________________________________________________
You will find a lot of literature searching in the social
sciences/sociology databases under 'social networks' and 'health'.
You will find 100s of references that equate a persons social network
position (based on their relationships with others) and health
status/outcome. A few to get you going:

Antonucci TC et al  "Social relations and depressive symptomatology in
a sample of community-dwelling French older adults"  Psychology of
Aging 12(1): 189-95 1997

Beeman SK "Reconceptualising social support and its relationship to
child neglect"  Social Service Review 71(3): 421-41 1997

Cohen S et al "Social ties and susceptibility to the common cold" JAMA
277(24): 1940-4 1997.

Kohler HP.  "Learning in social networks and contraceptive choice".
Demography (UNITED STATES) 34(3): 369-83 1997

Bosworth HB and Schaie KW "The relationship of social environment,
social networks, and health outcomes in the Seattle Longitudinal
Study: two analytical approachs.  Journals of Gerontology Series B:
Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences 52(5):197-205 1997

Hoffman JP, Su SS and Pach A "Changes in network characteristics and
HIV risk behaviour among injection drug users" Drug and Alcohol
Dependency 46(1-2):41-51 1997.

>From my experience of the literature it would appear that engaging in
social relationships is beneficial to the health.  But as a previous
respondant suggested it depends on the type of social relationship.
In EM Rogers "Diffusion of Innovations" he charts out the
social/sexual relationships between a number of HIV positive men in
San Fransisco which is fascinating
_____________________________________________________________
>  you might find useful to look at the work done by Becker
> i think he's done lots of stuff on this matter.
> Althuogh he speaks about marriage he also provides some info about
> social relatiopships before moving into marriage. You may also find
> useful to look at the work conducted  by his followers (or students).
> Have a look at the Econlit. This may offer some clues what happens
> on this matter from an economic viewpoint.
_____________________________________________________________
Interesting question Rob. I did a quick search, and recommend you
chase up the studies below:

A cohort study was completed by Reaper et. al. (1992) comparing health
outcomes in infants who were abandoned at birth with those who were
exposed to social family relationships. Significant differences in
mortality rates were found at follow-up (6 months, 1 year and 5 years
of age) after adjusting for parental SES.

There is also SOME evidence based on controlled trials. Dark & Loane
(1983) demonstrated that individuals who are randomly assigned to
complete isolation in broom-cupboards have considerably lower
quality-of-life scores after one, five and ten year^s confinement when
compared to those allowed out into the community. The validity of this
study has been questioned, however, on the grounds that filling out
the questionnaires accounted as social contact with the researchers.

Barking and associates (1989) also applied standardised measures of
psychosocial well-being to a random sample of wolf-children, but their
work has been criticised for want of a suitable control group.

L^Etranger (1998) compared a random sample of atomistic individuals
from the literature of neoclassical economics with a random sample of
characters from science fiction adventure comics, and concluded that
the former were significantly less likely ever to have existed.

Nevertheless, I think it would be unwarranted for health care service
providers to routinely recommend social relationships until we have
guidelines based on meta-analytic evidence, don't you?

--
Chris Jordens
Department of Surgery
University of Sydney
Australia
____________________________________________________________________
From: Chris Jordens <[log in to unmask]>

Dear Rob

I had to consider two possibilities. The first was that your question
was a clever hoax. Seeing as it was not, make sure you check out the
work of the social epidemiologist, Professor Len Syme of the
University
of California, Berkley.

The other possibility was confirmed by the shining wit if your
response.

--
Chris Jordens
Department of Surgery
University of Sydney
____________________________________________________________________
> Leonard Symes, Emeritus Prof of Epidemiology at Berkley CA has done
> a lot of research in how social factors play a part in disease
> causation.  He has come up with some very interesting evidence based
> theories relating to issues of control of destiny etc.
____________________________________________________________________
>  'social isolation' might be a useful MeSH heading too.
> As has already been suggested you are probably going to want to
limit this search.
> It all depends upon what question you are asking yourself. .......
> You might want to limit your search by age.
_____________________________________________________________________


> dear recipient
> 
> if you know of any valid evidence that
> suggests that it is healthier to engage
> in social relationships, rather than not
> to, could you please forward the details
> to me directly & i'll return a summary
> of all replies received over the next
> fortnight or so
> 
> many thanks in advance
> 
> rob
> ____________________________________
> 
> rob manning (95-15345)
> dphil student
> dept of economics & related studies
> university of york
> york yo10 5dd
> uk
> 
> phone:	+44 (0) 1904 433790
> fax:	+44 (0) 1904 433759
> ____________________________________
> 
> 

____________________________________

rob manning (95-15345)
dphil student
dept of economics & related studies
university of york
york yo10 5dd
uk

phone:	+44 (0) 1904 433790
fax:	+44 (0) 1904 433759
____________________________________



















%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%