How powerful is social support?

Dianne Shumay, PhD. The research over the three decades has shown that the presence of social support in your life is protective against almost any morbidity and mortality cause. It’s so powerful that in epidemiological research, it’s routinely controlled for as a confounder when they’re looking at other protective factors for health. So, if you’re looking at a big study of thousands of people you need to control for social support so that you can see the power of some of the other protective factors, because social support is such a big factor that it can outshine these other things that can be helpful for health.