{"id":4308,"date":"2024-04-17T09:00:21","date_gmt":"2024-04-17T09:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=4308"},"modified":"2024-04-17T09:29:00","modified_gmt":"2024-04-17T09:29:00","slug":"with-social-prescribing-art-and-volunteering-can-be-medicine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=4308","title":{"rendered":"With Social Prescribing, Art and Volunteering Can Be Medicine"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Prescriptions for social activities, exercise and the arts \u2014 first popularized in Britain \u2014 are coming to America. But some experts say the U.S. health care system may get in the way.<\/p>\n

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Last spring, Tia Washington, 52, a mother of three in Dublin, Calif., received a stern warning from her doctor: If she didn\u2019t quickly gain control of her high blood pressure, she was likely to end up in the emergency room.<\/p>\n

He wrote a prescription for blood pressure medication and urged her to see a health coach, too. Ms. Washington reluctantly agreed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t want to die,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

To her surprise, the health coach wanted to talk about more than vital signs. Ms. Washington found herself opening up about how she disliked doctors (and medications). How she tended to address the needs of work or family before her own. How her job had created \u201ctremendous stress.\u201d<\/p>\n

Together, they decided that Ms. Washington would attend two weekly movement classes, check in regularly with a nurse practitioner and receive free fruits and vegetables from a \u201cfood as medicine\u201d government program.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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By the end of the conversation with the health coach, Ms. Washington said, the message was clear: \u201cTia, pay attention to yourself. You exist.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms. Washington\u2019s experience is just one example of how a practice called social prescribing is being explored in the United States, after being adopted in more than 20 other countries<\/a>. The term \u201csocial prescription\u201d was first popularized in Britain<\/a> after it had been practiced there in various forms for decades. While there isn\u2019t one universally accepted definition, social prescriptions<\/a> generally aim to improve health and well-being by connecting people with nonclinical activities that address underlying problems<\/a>, such as isolation, social stress and lack of nutritious food, which have been shown<\/a> to play a crucial role in influencing who stays well and for how long.<\/p>\n

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Prescriptions for social activities, exercise and the arts \u2014 first popularized in Britain \u2014 are coming to America. But some experts say the U.S. health care system may get in the way.Last spring, Tia Washington, 52, a mother of three in Dublin, Calif., received a stern warning from her doctor: If she didn\u2019t quickly gain control of her high blood pressure, she was likely to end up in the emergency room.He wrote a prescription for blood pressure medication and urged her to see a health coach, too. Ms. Washington reluctantly agreed.\u201cI didn\u2019t want to die,\u201d she said.To her surprise, the health coach wanted to talk about more than vital signs. Ms. Washington found herself opening up about how she disliked doctors (and medications). How she tended to address the needs of work or family before her own. How her job had created \u201ctremendous stress.\u201dTogether, they decided that Ms. Washington would attend two weekly movement classes, check in regularly with a nurse practitioner and receive free fruits and vegetables from a \u201cfood as medicine\u201d government program.By the end of the conversation with the health coach, Ms. Washington said, the message was clear: \u201cTia, pay attention to yourself. You exist.\u201dMs. Washington\u2019s experience is just one example of how a practice called social prescribing is being explored in the United States, after being adopted in more than 20 other countries. The term \u201csocial prescription\u201d was first popularized in Britain after it had been practiced there in various forms for decades. While there isn\u2019t one universally accepted definition, social prescriptions generally aim to improve health and well-being by connecting people with nonclinical activities that address underlying problems, such as isolation, social stress and lack of nutritious food, which have been shown to play a crucial role in influencing who stays well and for how long.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4310,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4308"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4311,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4308\/revisions\/4311"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}