Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 8, 2026

A Complex Diving-For-Food Task to Investigate Social Organization and Interactions in Rats
Published on: May 8, 2021
Social relationships and health: a flashpoint for health policy
Debra Umberson1, Jennifer Karas Montez
1University of Texas at Austin, Department of Sociology, Austin, TX 78712, USA. umberson@prc.utexas.edu
Abstract:
Social relationships--both quantity and quality--affect mental health, health behavior, physical health, and mortality risk. Sociologists have played a central role in establishing the link between social relationships and health outcomes, identifying explanations for this link, and discovering social variation (e.g., by gender and race) at the population level. Studies show that social relationships have short- and long-term effects on health, for better and for worse, and that these effects emerge in childhood and cascade throughout life to foster cumulative advantage or disadvantage in health. This article describes key research themes in the study of social relationships and health, and it highlights policy implications suggested by this research.
Related Concept Videos
Social Relationships and Well-Being
Models of Health Promotion and Illness Prevention II
The agent-host-environment model states that disease results from...
Models of Health Promotion and Illness Prevention I
The health belief model (HBM) attempts to predict health-related behavior in specific belief patterns. According to the HBM, a person's...
Relationship Formation
Dimensions of Health and Illness
Impact of Social Context on Individuals

