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This edited book brings together the latest research on how group memberships, and the social identities associated with them, determine people's health and well-being.

Urban sociology highlights an important role that a city's social infrastructure, or "third-places," play in supporting healthy communities. Informed by social identity theorizing, this study explores when and why older adults engage with third-places and how a sense of wellbeing can be derived from their participation. Focus-group interviews were conducted with a sample of community-dwelling older adults ( N = 31) to examine the nature of one such third-place, a suburban neighborhood bridge club. Thematic analysis suggests that (a) the socio-spatial context of third-places can both enable and restrict participation, (b) third-places can support positive social identities (as bridge players, club members, locals), (c) enacting these identities in third-places facilitates a sense of wellbeing, and (d) third-places are potential connectors to the wider community. We discuss the policy implications for the development of age-friendly cities and the role of social identity processes in engaging with community groups in third-places.

Introduction: why do we need a new psychology of health? -- The social identity approach to health -- Social status and disadvantage -- Stigma -- Stress -- Trauma and resilience -- Ageing -- Depression -- Addiction -- Eating behaviour -- Acquired brain injury -- Acute pain -- Chronic mental health conditions -- Chronic physical health conditions -- Unlocking the social cure : groups 4 health -- References -- Subject index -- Author index.

Advancing the Social Cure presents a new psychology of health, which focuses on the role that social capital and related factors play in a range of health outcomes and offers. Its distinctive and practical approach will be ideal for students in clinical and health psychology, as well as health professionals and anyone with an interest in the field.

Considerable evidence now exists that people can draw on social groups in order to maintain and enhance health and well‐being. We review this evidence and suggest that social identity theorizing, and its development in the social identity approach to health and well‐being, can help us to understand the way that groups, and the identities that underpin them, can promote a social cure. Specifically, we propose that social groups are important psychological resources that have the capacity to protect health and well‐being, but that they are only utilized effectively when individuals perceive they share identity with another individual or group. However, as powerful as shared identities may be, their consequences for health are largely ignored in policy and practice. In this review, we offer a novel direction for policy, identifying ways in which building and consolidating group identification can help to capitalize effectively on the potential of group membership for health. Using this as a basis to increase awareness, we go further to offer practical interventions aimed at assessing identity resources as substantial and concrete assets, which can be cultivated and harnessed in order to realize their health‐enhancing potential.

Health and society : contributions to improving healthcare from the social sciences / Richard Williams -- Six features of the human condition : the social causation and social construction of mental health / Steven R. Smith -- Social sciences and health : a framework for building and strengthening social connectedness / Catherine Haslam and S. Alexander Haslam -- The social identity approach to health / S. Alexander Haslam, Jolanda Jetten and Catherine Haslam -- The relevance of social science to improving health and healthcare / Daniel Maughan, Sue Bailey and Richard Williams -- The social determinants of mental health / Kamaldeep S. Bhui, Oliver Quantick and David Ross -- Laidback science : messages from horizontal epidemiology / Alarcos Cieza and Jerome Bickenbach -- Parity of esteem for mental health / Sue Bailey -- Belonging / Peter Hindley -- Families and communities : their meanings and roles across ethnic cultures / Hinemoa Elder -- The nature of resilience : coping with adversity / Richard Williams and Verity Kemp -- The value of tolerance and the tolerability of competing values / Jonathan Montgomery -- Towards partnerships in health and social care : a coloquium of approaches to connectedness / Richard Williams, Susan Bailey, and Verity Kemp -- Commentaries on core themes in section 3 / Jonathan Montgomery, S. Alexander Haslam, Adrian Neal and Richard Williams -- Crowds and cooperation / John Drury, Hani Alnabulsi and Holly Carter -- Emergencies, disasters and risk reduction : a microcosm of social relationships in communities / Tim Healing, Anthony D. Redmond, Verity Kemp and Richard Williams -- Shared social identity in emergencies, disasters and conflicts / John Drury and Khalifah Alfadhli -- Complex trauma and complex responses to trauma in the asylum context / Cornelius Katona and Francesca Brady -- The mental health of veterans : ticking time bomb or business as usual? / Deirdre Macmanus, Anna F Taylor and Neil Greenberg -- Violent radicalisation : relational roots and preventive implications / Kamaldeep S. Bhui and Rachel Jenkins -- Ways out of intractable conflict / John, Professor the Lord Alderdice -- Agency as a source of recovery and creativity / John Drury, Tim Healing, Richard Williams, Catherine Haslam and Verity Kemp -- Making connectedness count : from theory to practising a social identity model of health / Stephen Reicher -- Public health values and evidence-based practice / Jonathan Montgomery and Richard Williams -- Social scaffolding : supporting the development of positive social identities and agency in communities / Catherine Haslam, S. Alexandser Haslam and Tegan Cruwys -- Synthesising social science into healthcare / Daniel Maughan and Richard Williams -- Relationships, groups, teams and long-termism / Peter Aitken, John Drury and Richard Williams -- Caring for the carers / Adrian Neal, Verity Kemp and Richard Williams -- The importance of creating and harnessing a sense of 'us' : social identity as the missing link between leadership and health / S. Alexander Haslam, Niklas K. Steffens and Kim Peters -- Smithtown as society / Verity Kemp, Daniel Maughan, Richard Williams, Richard Mills and Tim Healing -- Suit the action to the word, the word to the action / Richard Williams.

AbstractOne of the most serious challenges inherent in retirement transition is coping with social identity changes. We investigated social identity processes and the role of social engagement during retirement transition by examining the life narratives of recently retired university faculty (14 males and 5 females) from 12 different academic areas. The interviews were analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). The results revealed one overarching theme—the centrality and importance of academic identity—and 3 identity transition processes with their associated goals: identity continuity, identity change, and identity conservation. Four additional themes captured the manifestations of these identity processes as they play out in the lived experiences of identity transition among these recent academic retirees: awareness of negative aspects in academia and perceived lack of fit between self and academia; social disidentification with academic identity; identity discovery and seeking old and new identities; and embracing old and new identities, including hobby-related and place-anchored activities. Maintaining and transforming parts of their former identities, as opposed to an active search for new connections, was a prevalent strategy among the participants. We discuss implications for designing strategies to better prepare recent academic retirees and academics who are considering retirement to enable a smoother identity transition and improved well-being.

AbstractPrevious work in the social identity tradition suggests that adjustment to significant life changes, both positive (e.g., becoming a new parent) and negative (e.g., experiencing a stroke), can be supported by access to social group networks. This is the basis for the social identity model of identity change (SIMIC), which argues that, in the context of life transitions, well‐being and adjustment are enhanced to the extent that people are able to maintain preexisting social group memberships that are important to them or else acquire new ones. Building on empirical work that has examined these issues in the context of a variety of life transitions, we outline the relevance of SIMIC for one particular life transition: retiring from work. We identify four key lessons that speak to the importance of managing social group resources effectively during the transition to retirement from the workforce. These suggest that adjustment to retirement is enhanced to the extent that retirees: (1) can access multiple important group memberships and the psychological resources they provide, (2) maintain positive and valued existing groups, and (3) develop meaningful new groups, (4) providing they are compatible with one another. This theory and empirical evidence is used to introduce a new social intervention, Groups 4 Health, that translates SIMIC's lessons into practice. This program aims to guide people through the process of developing and embedding their social group ties in ways that protect their health and well‐being in periods of significant life change of the form experienced by many people as they transition into retirement.

In recent years, there has been growing recognition of the threats to health posed by loneliness. One of the main strategies that has been recommended to address this is social prescribing (SP). This typically involves general practitioners (GPs) and other health practitioners directing clients who are experiencing loneliness and related conditions to take part in social activities—typically in recreational and community contexts. However, evidence for the effectiveness of SP is mixed—leading some to suggest that enthusiasm for it might be misplaced. In this review, we argue that a core problem with most existing approaches to SP is that they lack a strong theoretical base. This has been a barrier to (a) understanding when SP will work and why, (b) designing optimally effective SP programmes, and (c) developing practitioner skills and appropriate infrastructure to support them. As a corrective to this state of affairs, this review outlines a three-tier social identity framework for SP and five associated hypotheses. These hypotheses predict that SP will be more effective when (a) clients join groups and (b) these groups are ones with which they identify, and when SP is supported by (c) social-identity-enhancing social infrastructure, (d) a social-identity-based therapeutic alliance, and (e) identity leadership that builds and shapes this alliance as well as clients' identification with prescribed groups. This framework is supported by a range of evidence and provides an agenda for much-needed future research and practice.