Social Integration, Social Networks, Social Support, and Health

Abstract It is difficult now to reconstruct the logic that led us to believe that the nature of human relationships—the degree to which an individual is interconnected and embedded in a community—is vital to an individual’s health and well-being as well as to the health and vitality of entire populations. In retrospect, a combination of observations and reading the rich theoretical literature on social integration, attachment, and social networks led us to test these ideas empirically.