description

An Excerpt from the Article:

Hashmi had, in effect, written Ruth a social prescription, in which a clinician refers a patient to a community or cultural activity such as an art club, music performance, dance class, volunteer activity, or nature walk in order to bolster their mental and physical health. As chronic health conditions, an aging population, and declining mental health overwhelm the nation, prescription drugs are not the magic bullets they’re sometimes expected to be—and that’s particularly true right now, during a global pandemic and the greatest natural experiment of social isolation in history. Doctors have very few tools to address the social determinants of health. Could social prescribing be part of the solution?

To begin answering that question, social prescribing needs a formal definition. The English might have the best claim to creating it, since their National Health Service (NHS) is the only major health care system that has funded social prescribing nationally. Dr. Michael Dixon, a pioneer of the social prescribing movement in England and chair of the College of Medicine, keeps the parameters broad. “I suppose I define it as anything that the patient and the link worker think will help get them to a better place,” he says.

Access resource