The ties that bind are the ties that heal: living in a strong community can prolong your life

Vegetarian Times, August, 1997 by Mark Harris

Nestled into a wooded hillside in the Pocono mountains, the tiny hamlet of Roseto doesn't look all that different from the other towns that populate this forested corner of eastern Pennsylvania. White frame houses line orderly streets, and an old-fashionedd main street still boasts a few attractions to lure local away from the amusements or nearby tourist havens. At noontime, the bells of the big church clang out a hymn, and the streets fill with workers out for a quick lunch and seniors running errands.

The brick and mortar of Roseto may not distinguish this ethnic Italian-American enclave from its neighboring towns, but another remarkable quality does: In the 1960s, researchers found that Rosetans were among the healthiest people in the United States. Surveys showed that Rosetans died of heart disease at a rate half the national average and tended to outlive their peers by many years. Moreover, they exhibited greater resistance to mental illness and peptic ulcers than other Americans.

Rosetan's longevity defied medical logic because they smoked and drank as much as other Americans, experienced as much stress, exercised as infrequently, and fueled themselves on a high-fat diet that seemed ready-made not for long life but an early exit: traditional Italian fare fried in artery-clogging fat.

How to account for such good health in a group with such bad health habits? In a word: community. Stewart Wolf, M.D., then a professor at the University of Oklahoma School of Medicine, launched an investigation in 1961 and found that the tight-knit community that had evolved in Roseto fosterd an atmosphere of mutual support and camaraderie that buoyed and protected its residents. Such cohesiveness "served to counteract the effects of life stress and thereby were a protective against [heart disease'," writes Wolf in The Roseto Story: an Anatomy of Health (University of Oklahoma PRess, 1979). He dubbed the health benefit of living in a community the Roseto Effect.

The Roseto he stumbled upon more than 390 years ago was a mountaintop Mayberry R.F.D. After punching out at the local slate quarries and blouse factories, Rosetans returned to close, extended families where grandparents, parents and children lived under one roof, each nurturing and supporting the other. Rosetans also invested themselves in the larger community. "In the evening after supper, most families would walk around their neighborhood and chat and joke with each other," recalls Wolf. "They were obviously enjoying each other's company."

Rosetans socialized more formally at the many civic and community organizations they had joined. At one time there were 22 active civic groups -- from the Marconi Social Club to the PTA in a town whose population numbered just a little more than 1,600. Religion also played an important social role in this heavily Catholic town. Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church, which anchors the southern end of Roseto, brought residents together in a perpetual cycle of pageants, rituals, festivals and First Communions that became famous in this par of Pennsylvania.

Roseto may be a dramatic example of the health benefits to be gained from a strong community, but it's not unique. Sociological studies done since the 1950s have shown that individuals who engage in social relations tend to outlive those who don't. A number of them have found, for instance, that married people live longer than their single counterparts and that socially active people are less suicidal than those who are isolated. Other studies have shown that the intimate support of others can lessen the effects of heart disease, increase the longevity of women with breast cancer, and aid in the recovery of people with chronic addictions. A more recent study that tracked 2,500 middle-aged to elderly Finnish men over a six-year period found that those who participated in organizations, maintained many friendships and were married reduced their risk of death by up to 50 percent.

Perhaps the best proof of the power of the Roseto Effect is found back in modern-day Roseto itself, whose tight weave began to unravel in the early 1970s. It was then that younger generations increasingly took work outside of the region, church attendance slipped, and the number of three-generational households declined. The conformity that narrowed differences between the haves and have-nots disappeared as well, rending community spirit. A rising affluent class did its socializing at an exclusive country club and moved into spacious suburban-style homes at the edge of town -- erecting satellite dishes, above-ground swimming pools and fences to go around them.

As the glue that held Roseto together dissolved, so did the health benefit that came from living there. In 1971, the village recorded its first ever heart attack of anyone under 45. Today, rates of heart disease mirror the national average, and the edge in longevity long enjoyed by Rosetans has been erased.

RETURN TO COMMUNITY

If the quality of our civic life is any indication, modern-day Roseto is merely a microcosm of America in the 1990s. Across the country, voters turn up at the polls in ever-shrinking numbers, chairs set out at the town meeting sit empty, and fewer and fewer folks can be counted on to step forward and volunteer. The familiar do-good organizations that have as their foundation a belief in one's civic responsibility -- the Masons, Elks, League of Women Voters and labor unions -- have gone begging for members in the last decade.