all Nicholas Christakis stories

The genes in your congeniality:

404132862 — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 14:46:26 -0500

Can’t help being the life of the party? Maybe you were just born that way. Researchers at Harvard and the University of California, San Diego, have found that our place in a social network is influenced in part by our genes, according to new findings published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Having happy friends can make you happy

404132862 — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 14:55:39 -0500

If you’re happy and you know it, thank your friends — and their friends. And while you’re at it, their friends’ friends. But if you’re sad, hold the blame. Researchers from Harvard Medical School and the University of California, San Diego, have found that “happiness” is not the result solely of a cloistered journey filled with individually tailored self-help techniques. Happiness is also a collective phenomenon that spreads through social networks like an emotional contagion.

Happy despite it all? Thank your friends, study shows

404132862 — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 10:09:36 -0500

Smoking is addictive but quitting is contagious

yvette — Mon, 19 May 2008 17:07:59 -0400

Over the last 30 years, the number of smokers in the U.S. has steadily decreased—a tribute to the efforts of public-health workers everywhere. And while this fact is unarguable, less obvious are the social and cultural forces that lead an individual to kick the habit. In fact, when someone crumbles that last empty pack of their favorite unfiltered brand and vows to never buy another, he might not realize that he is less like the heroic individual grasping his own boot straps and more like a single bird whose sudden left turn is just one speck in the larger flock.

Obesity is contagious

404132862 — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 15:37:43 -0400

Public health officials have been working hard to account for the dramatic rise in U.S. obesity rates. Many obvious factors, such as poor diet and a sedentary lifestyle, certainly contribute to the swelling statistics. However, these and other explanations tend to focus exclusively on how individuals’ choices and behaviors affect their own weight.

Now, researchers from Harvard Medical School and the University of California, San Diego have found that obesity is hardly a private matter. Reporting in the July 26 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, the researchers found that obesity spreads through social ties.

Obesity runs in families - and friends, too

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 09:36:10 -0400

Having overweight family and friends increases the likelihood someone will become overweight, according to a Harvard researcher who examined obesity and social network data from the long-running Framingham Heart Study.

Nicholas Christakis, professor of medical sociology at Harvard Medical School and professor of sociology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, said March 6 that the results are not that unusual given that prior research has documented the influence of social networks on the health of people under a variety of conditions.

The 'widow effect' is real

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 06:24:53 -0400

In findings that highlight how health effects can reverberate through a social network, a researcher at HMS and his colleague report that the serious illness of an elderly spouse increases the risk of death of a husband or wife. In fact, a few illnesses in a spouse, such as dementia, may pose more of a risk to the partner than if the spouse had died.

It was already known that disease in one spouse can harm the health of a partner. Many studies have shown that a spouse’s demise can be fatal to the other half. The new analysis extends this literature.

Study says 'widower effect' is real

50443248 — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 12:31:56 -0400

A spouse's illness can not only be bad for your health, it can kill you, according to a new study of couples over age 65 that highlights the importance of social networks to a person's health.
The study, by researchers at Harvard Medical School and the University of Pennsylvania, shows that the impact of a spouse's illness on his or her partner's health can be as bad as or worse than it would be if the spouse had died.

A man's hospitalization for a psychiatric disease had the worst impact on a wife's health, increasing her risk of dying during the study's nine-year course by 32 percent. His death, by contrast, only increased her risk of dying 17 percent.