Director’s Innovation Speaker Series: Social Connection: An Eye to the Past, Present, and Future

Overview

During this lecture, Julianne Holt-Lunstad, Ph.D.  will discuss the health impacts of having or lacking social connection. The COVID-19 pandemic raised awareness about loneliness but also revealed gaps in our understanding of the individual and public health impacts of social connection. Dr. Holt-Lunstad will draw upon her own work, her work with the U.S. Surgeon General Advisory, and the broader scientific literature, to highlight the scope of the issue, evidence of health implications, and challenges and opportunities for translating this evidence into practical solutions and policy.

About Dr. Holt-Lunstad

Dr. Holt-Lunstad is a psychology and neuroscience professor and director of the Social Connection and Health Lab at Brigham Young University. She is also the founding scientific chair and board member for the U.S. Foundation for Social Connection and the Global Initiative on Loneliness and Connection.

Dr. Holt-Lunstad is an international expert focused on the individual and population health effects, biological mechanisms, and strategies to mitigate risk and promote protection associated with social connection. Her work has been seminal in recognizing social isolation and loneliness as early mortality risk factors. As the lead scientific editor for a U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory and Framework for a National Strategy, her work also focuses on translating evidence into practice and policy.

About the Director’s Innovation Speaker Series

NIMH established the Director’s Innovation Speaker Series to encourage broad, interdisciplinary thinking in developing scientific initiatives and programs and to press for theoretical leaps in science over the continuation of incremental thought. Innovation speakers are encouraged to describe their work from the perspective of breaking through existing boundaries and developing successful new ideas, as well as working outside their primary area of expertise in ways that have pushed their fields forward. We encourage discussions of the meaning of innovation, creativity, breakthroughs, and paradigm-shifting.

Sponsored by

Division of Extramural Activities

Registration

This event is free, but you must register to attend.

Contact

InnovationSpeakers@mail.nih.gov

More information

Closed captioning and a sign language interpreter will be provided for this event.