Social Support:A Critical Factor in Women's Health and Health Promotion

Social networks and social support have been found to be beneficial to the health of individuals in a variety of ways--reducing mortality rates, improving recovery from serious illness, and increasing use of preventive health practices. Social relationships appear to be particularly important to women. Suggestions for health promotion and disease prevention activities include the use of buddy systems, feminist pedagogical techniques, group activities, and linkage to natural supports. Health promotion with women is an underdeveloped area of social work practice with great potential to increase the health of client populations. Key words disease prevention health promotion social support women Social workers have long been involved in public health activities promoting positive health and preventing disease, as well as providing medical social work services in health facilities. Social work involvement in health promotion started over a century ago in settlement houses, which provided education to the community on reducing the spread of tuberculosis and other communicable diseases, as well as on first aid and healthy lifestyles, including proper diet, exercise, and hygiene (Bracht, 1987). This tradition has continued into the present as social workers are involved in programs to reduce HIV infection, teenage pregnancy, smoking, and drug use, as well as in efforts to promote positive lifestyles and encourage early screening for various types of cancer, heart disease, and other medical problems. Health promotion is emerging as a strong focus in the current health care system, both as a way to reduce the costs of medical treatment and as a way to increase community health. As science has advanced, the risk factors for many medical problems have become known and the focus of health promotion and disease prevention is often on particular high-risk groups. These efforts typically target decreasing behaviors associated with contracting a disease or increasing the use of screening practices or healthy lifestyles. Although health promotion programs usually concern particular medical problems, there are several factors that have an overarching effect on health promotion and disease prevention for the general population. Some factors are economic and structural (such as improved access to health care and the need for universal health insurance) and are beyond the ability of social workers to change; however, others, such as social support, can be incorporated fairly easily into health promotion efforts and can improve their effectiveness. Research has shown that social support is influential in maintaining health and preventing disease for men and women, as well as in helping them cope with a variety of medical problems (Glass et al., 2000). Health promotion and support have been correlated with increased longevity in both general community populations and in people with various diseases and with improved coping with medical problems and use of preventive health practices (Berkman & Syme, 1979; Glass et al., 2000; Kang, Bloom, & Romano, 1994; Shumaker & Hill, 1991). Only recently has women's health become a focus of activity in the health arena after years of inattention. During the past decade, journals in various health disciplines have decried the lack of research on diseases primarily affecting women and the lack of women participants in clinical trials and drug research (Clancy & Massion, 1992; Healy, 1991a, 1991b; Olson, 1994). Evidence was presented to Congress on the National Institutes of Health's lack of compliance in implementing its own 1986 policy on the inclusion of women in study populations (Nadel, 1990a, 1990b). The Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs of the American Medical Association (1991) described the status of medical treatment for women as inadequate, with a serious lack of progress in determining the causation of and treatment for various diseases that women experience. …