Different aspects of personal relationships including social integration, social support, and social conflict have been related to inflammation. This article summarizes evidence linking the quality and quantity of relationships with gene expression, intracellular signaling mechanisms, and inflammatory biomarkers, and highlights the biological and psychological pathways through which close relat...

This article presents three studies examining whether alexithymia is associated with less perceived and network social support, whether such relationships are accounted for by reduced social skills associated with alexithymia, and whether limited social support links alexithymia to health problems. The relationships between alexithymia (Toronto Alexithymia Scale), social variables, and physical...

Relationships are at the center of the human social environment, and their quality and longevity are now recognized to have particular relevance for health. The goal of this article is to bring attention to the role of culture in how relationships, particularly close relationships and family relationships, influence health. To this end, 2 contexts that are characterized by 2 distinct forms of c...

Many studies have demonstrated that social relationships confer mental health benefits. This paper aims to identify whether and how reciprocity in social relationships predicts or is associated with mental health benefits as well as with continuity in elderly people's social relationships. The studies reviewed in this paper show that, among elders, being in a balanced or underbenefited reciproc...

The relationship between poverty and mental health is indisputable. However, to have an influence on the next set of sustainable global development goals, we need to understand the causal relationships between social determinants such as poverty, inequality, lack of education and unemployment; thereby clarifying which aspects of poverty are the key drivers of mental illness. Some of the major c...

BACKGROUND Socioeconomic status (SES) is an important determinant of population health. Explanatory approaches on how SES determines health have so far included numerous factors, amongst them psychosocial factors such as social relationships. However, it is unclear whether social relationships can help explain socioeconomic differences in general subjective health. Do different aspects of socia...