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Since the 1970s, there has been a dramatic increase of interest in the concept of social support as it affects health and well being. This interest is reflected in an explosion of research as well as an increase in the number of treatment and intervention programs that use social support for therapeutic assistance. The phenomenon is especially remarkable because of the breadth of disciplines concerned with the concept-including anthropology, architecture, environmental design, epidemiology, gerontology, health education and planning, psychology, social work, and sociology. This book provides a systematic and critical assessment of this outpouring of work, a guide for doing further research on social support and health, and a source of information on the implications of existing work for clinical practice and public policy Our goal is to facilitate evaluation of what has been done, to identify gaps in krowledge, and to …