The Amazing Health Giving Power of Community

By Marcus Timson, FuturePrint

Malcolm Gladwell is one of my favourite writers and Outliers is one of my favourite books on success.

An ‘outlier’ is a statistical abnormality. It is when something, somewhere or someone performs off the scale, well outside the normal barriers of ability and convention.

The book begins with the first chapter dedicated to Roseto, a small town in Pennsylvania whose founders were settlers from the town of the same name in Italy. The reason the first chapter is entitled the ‘Roseto Mystery’ is that in this small town somehow, during the 1950s and 1960s, inhabitants enjoyed unusually good health. Before the advent of cholesterol-lowering drugs, the leading cause of death for the under 65’s in the USA was heart disease. Yet the people of Roseto were merely dying of old age.

A famous study was made by Stewart Wolff (a physician) and Thomas Bruhn (a sociologist) into how this could be so. They scientifically and meticulously analysed diet, habits, exercise, genes etc. Yet despite following a rigorous methodical process, the ensuing results did not reveal that these Rosetans had any noticeable advantages over or any distinct biological differences to other Americans. In fact, they found that the people of Roseto were just as unhealthy, far too many of them smoked, they didn't exercise enough, and they had bad diets and struggled with obesity. In fact, they lived just as unhealthily as the people of neighbouring towns, yet somehow they outlived them by some distance.

Despite a search for a clear science-based reason for this outlier, nothing was found. Non-plussed, Wolff and Bruhn took a different approach. The research team had observed the social culture and behaviour of the community. People lived close to one another, families of three generations frequently convened over dinner, and neighbours helped and supported one another. People talked, connected, enjoyed one another's company. Everyone had broadly the same kind of lifestyle, lived in roughly the same sized house, and had the same kind of life expectations. There was no obvious difference between those doing well, and those who were not.

The conclusion the study made was that the Rosetans were, therefore, able to manage stress far more effectively through the mutual support of their community. They enjoyed a shared legacy, culture and purpose. By experiencing lower stress compared with their less community-oriented counterparts in neighbouring towns, they simply were far less likely to get ill and as a result, they lived far longer.

So what?

I love this story as it underlines the power of a connected and active community. Supporting one another, with simple gestures, introductions, help and insight make a significant difference to the spirit, health and efficacy of people within a healthy, connected and thriving community.

I think that the same is true of business communities. We have found this over the past 12 months when running our virtual events and being active in developing the FuturePrint community.

When lockdown ends and the worrying resurgence of coronavirus finally dissipates we look forward to connecting with people again in a face to face format and developing new opportunities through shared purpose, focus and collaboration.

The power and importance of community aren’t always so obvious until it is no longer there.