It's About Community . . .

While Malcolm Gladwell's newest book, Outliers, is not a featured " Blog Book of the Month," I'm recommending it -- well, maybe only the Introduction for now! The title of the Intro, "The Roseto Mystery," caught my eye because I thought "He cannot possibly mean Roseto, PA!" However, he did, indeed, mean Roseto, PA!

Here's a very brief summary of the story: In the 1950's, a physician named Stewart Wolf was made aware of the town of Roseto, PA and its medical "claim to fame" that it rarely had a resident under 65 with heart disease. Wolf and sociologist John Bruhn set about the task of studying this town to see if this claim could be substantiated and explained. According to Gladwell (p. 7), they found that "virtually no one under fifty-five had died of a heart attack or showed any signs of heart disease. For men over sixty-five, the death rate from heart disease in Roseto was roughly half that of the United States as a whole. The death rate from all causes in Roseto, in fact, was 30 to 35 percent lower than expected." Because these results lay outside everyday experience -- hence the title "Outliers" -- they investigated further.

After studying diet, exercise, genetics, and geographical region, the investigators determined that it was Roseto itself that was responsible for these remarkable findings. How Rosetans lived -- visiting one another, stopping to chat on the street, cooking for one another, living with three generations under one roof, respect of elders, participation in civic organizations, the effect of the church, and the "egalitarian ethos of community -- was responsible! As Gladwell states (p. 9), "The Rosetans were healthy because of where they were from, because of the world they had created for themselves in their tiny town in the hills." This finding was significant because it pointed toward thinking about good health in terms of good community. That is, "the values of the world we inahbit and the people we surround ourselves with have a profound effect on who we are" (p. 11).

Now, this might not be startling news to my loyal blog readers. However, it's important when we get wrapped up in advocacy, policy, the new administration in the US, etc., etc., etc., to step back and remember that it's about WE rather than ME. There's no greater point that a JPIC blog can make today.

P.S. Still have your doubts? Consider this: In 1992, Brenda Egolf and Judith Lasker published "The Roseto Effect: A 50-year Comparison of Mortality Rates" in the American Journal of Public Health. After comparing 50 years of mortality rates(1935 to 1985) from Roseto with those of nearby Bangor, PA, these researchers determined that citizens in Roseto had a lower mortality rate from myocardial infarction over the course of the first 30 years, but the rate rose to the level of Bangor's following a period of erosion of traditionally cohesive family and community relationships.