The Connection Cure
The Prescriptive Power of Movement, Nature, Art, Service, and Belonging
Published on 17. June 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
336 pages
978-1-6680-3034-9 (ISBN)
Description
*A NEXT BIG IDEA CLUB MUST-READ*
*A HARVARD PUBLIC HEALTH MAGAZINE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR *
COVERED IN NPR, NBC, BBC, CNN, FOX, Ologies, The Guardian, Slate, PBS, Wall Street Journal, Scientific American & more.
"Everyone should read this book.” —Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Chief Medical Correspondent at CNN and New York Times bestselling author
In this combination of diligent science reporting, moving patient success stories, and surprising self-discovery, journalist Julia Hotz helps us discover the lasting and life-changing power of social prescribing.
Traditionally, when we get sick, health care professionals ask, “What’s the matter with you?” But around the world, teams of doctors, nurses, therapists, and social workers have started to flip the script, asking “What matters to you?” Instead of solely pharmaceutical prescriptions, they offer “social prescriptions”—referrals to community activities and resources, like photography classes, gardening groups, and volunteering gigs.
The results speak for themselves. Science shows that social prescribing is effective for treating symptoms of the modern world’s most common ailments—depression, ADHD, addiction, trauma, anxiety, chronic pain, dementia, diabetes, and loneliness. As health care’s de facto cycle of “diagnose-treat-repeat” reaches a breaking point, social prescribing has also proven to reduce patient wait times, lower hospitalization rates, save money, and reverse health worker burnout. And as a general sense of unwellness plagues more of us, social prescriptions can help us feel healthier than we’ve felt in years.
As the first book on social prescribing, The Connection Cure empowers you to find, experience, and implement this revolutionary medicine in your own community. While touring the globe to investigate the spread of social prescribing to over thirty countries, Hotz meets people personifying its revolutionary potential: an aspiring novelist whose art workshop helps her cope with trauma symptoms and rediscover her joy; a policy researcher whose swimming course helps her taper off antidepressants and feel excited to wake up in the morning; an army vet whose phone conversations help him form his only true friendship; and dozens more. The success stories she finds bring a long-known theory to life: if we can change our environment, we can change our health. By reconnecting to what matters to us, we can all start to feel better.
*A HARVARD PUBLIC HEALTH MAGAZINE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR *
COVERED IN NPR, NBC, BBC, CNN, FOX, Ologies, The Guardian, Slate, PBS, Wall Street Journal, Scientific American & more.
"Everyone should read this book.” —Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Chief Medical Correspondent at CNN and New York Times bestselling author
In this combination of diligent science reporting, moving patient success stories, and surprising self-discovery, journalist Julia Hotz helps us discover the lasting and life-changing power of social prescribing.
Traditionally, when we get sick, health care professionals ask, “What’s the matter with you?” But around the world, teams of doctors, nurses, therapists, and social workers have started to flip the script, asking “What matters to you?” Instead of solely pharmaceutical prescriptions, they offer “social prescriptions”—referrals to community activities and resources, like photography classes, gardening groups, and volunteering gigs.
The results speak for themselves. Science shows that social prescribing is effective for treating symptoms of the modern world’s most common ailments—depression, ADHD, addiction, trauma, anxiety, chronic pain, dementia, diabetes, and loneliness. As health care’s de facto cycle of “diagnose-treat-repeat” reaches a breaking point, social prescribing has also proven to reduce patient wait times, lower hospitalization rates, save money, and reverse health worker burnout. And as a general sense of unwellness plagues more of us, social prescriptions can help us feel healthier than we’ve felt in years.
As the first book on social prescribing, The Connection Cure empowers you to find, experience, and implement this revolutionary medicine in your own community. While touring the globe to investigate the spread of social prescribing to over thirty countries, Hotz meets people personifying its revolutionary potential: an aspiring novelist whose art workshop helps her cope with trauma symptoms and rediscover her joy; a policy researcher whose swimming course helps her taper off antidepressants and feel excited to wake up in the morning; an army vet whose phone conversations help him form his only true friendship; and dozens more. The success stories she finds bring a long-known theory to life: if we can change our environment, we can change our health. By reconnecting to what matters to us, we can all start to feel better.
More details
Language
English
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 210 mm
Width: 138 mm
Thickness: 24 mm
Weight
286 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-6680-3034-9 (9781668030349)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Julia Hotz
The Connection Cure
The Prescriptive Power of Movement, Nature, Art, Service, and Belonging
E-Book
06/2024
Simon + Schuster LLC
€14.83
Available for download
Person
Julia Hotz is a solutions focused journalist based in New York. Her stories have appeared in The New York Times, WIRED, Scientific American, The Boston Globe, Time, and more. She helps other journalists report on the big new ideas changing the world at the Solutions Journalism Network. For her insights on social prescribing, she has been invited to advise health and community organizations, teach in medical schools, deliver talks at TEDx, university symposiums, and international conferences, and write editorials for publications including The Wall Street Journal, Slate, and more. She proudly serves on the board of Walk with a Doc, and as an advisor to Social Prescribing USA.