With social prescribing, hanging out, movement and arts are doctor's order
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Most Americans - close to 60% - have some kind of chronic illness. You know, a problem that goes on over time, like diabetes or heart disease or many other conditions. Chronic diseases are now the leading cause of death worldwide, and some American health care providers are adopting an unconventional approach to them that they borrowed from overseas. NPR's Rhitu Chatterjee reports.
RHITU CHATTERJEE, BYLINE: For decades, Frank Frost worked as a long-distance truck driver, ferrying industrial chemicals across the United Kingdom.
FRANK FROST: I worked away from home six days a week, working up to 12, 15 hours a day.
CHATTERJEE: Eventually, that lifestyle took a toll.
FROST: I weighed 270 pounds at my heaviest. My only exercise was looking for a fast-food outlet at the evening when I'd parked up.
CHATTERJEE: He was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes in his 50s and prescribed insulin injections. His doctors told him to move more and lose weight. When he failed, Frost says they made him feel worthless.
FROST: To tell you the truth, I didn't trust doctors at the time.
CHATTERJEE: Then he met a doctor with a completely different approach.
FROST: He asked me what mattered to me, which I'd never been asked before by a doctor. I told him that I wanted to live long enough to see my grandkids grow up.
CHATTERJEE: So his doctor helped him figure out a plan to get his diabetes under control. It included a way to help Frost start biking again, because he'd loved it as a child but hadn't biked in years.
JULIA HOTZ: And so the doctor says, great. I'm not just going to tell you to ride your bike. I'm going to prescribe you a spot in this 10-week cycling course for adults like you - over 50, just learning to ride your bike again.
CHATTERJEE: That's journalist Julia Hotz. She's written about Frost's experience in her new book, "The Connection Cure: The Prescriptive Power Of Movement, Nature, Art, Service And Belonging." She says the prescription Frost's doctor gave him is called a social prescription.
HOTZ: Social prescribing is flipping the script from focusing on what's the matter with you to focusing on what matters to you. What are your activities that you love? What gets you out of bed in the morning?
CHATTERJEE: Providers in nearly 30 countries are already using social prescribing.
HOTZ: So in my book, for example, I talk about a woman who gets prescribed sea swimming lessons that help her with her depression. I talk about a man who gets prescribed fishing for his ADHD. In Norway, I came across this really interesting program that prescribes farm work to people with dementia.
CHATTERJEE: Here in the United States, physicians at the Center for Geriatric Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic now routinely use social prescriptions.
ARDESHIR HASHMI: No one wants to be on yet another pill. They are all interested in being on fewer pills but still getting to that destination that they want to get to. So let's say it's lower blood pressure or lower cholesterol.
CHATTERJEE: Dr. Ardeshir Hashmi is chief of geriatrics.
HASHMI: And it is amazing when the conversation steps out of this confines of, the answer to everything should be either a pill or a surgery.
CHATTERJEE: He and his colleagues have seen social prescriptions improve memory and bring down levels of loneliness, depression and anxiety. And studies in other countries show this approach saves money in reduced emergency room visits, fewer hospitalizations and physician visits. All great reasons for American health systems to adopt it, says Dr. Alan Siegel.
ALAN SIEGEL: We spend more money than anywhere else in the world, and the outcomes that we get out of that are really just not that great.
CHATTERJEE: Siegel is a family physician at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, California, and the executive director for Social Prescribing USA, a nonprofit advocating for these prescriptions.
SIEGEL: I want better health for my patients and a health care system for my children which really supports health and wellness.
CHATTERJEE: Back in the U.K., Frank Frost, now 76 years old, can attest that social prescribing transformed his life. He's lost 100 pounds and hasn't been on insulin for eight years. Biking is a big part of his life now, and so are the friends he made through the biking class his doctor prescribed him.
FROST: We all look after each other. You know, we're all of a certain age. We don't leave anybody. So I love it. It's changed my life, the exercise.
CHATTERJEE: Rhitu Chatterjee, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
Copyright © 2025 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
Accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts may vary. Transcript text may be revised to correct errors or match updates to audio. Audio on npr.org may be edited after its original broadcast or publication. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.