Adam Braus  0:00  
Everybody, this is Adam brouse

Scot Maupin  0:02  
This is Scott mopan.

Adam Braus  0:04  
And this is solutions from the multiverse.

Scot Maupin  0:06  
Welcome. Today we have a special guest with us.

Daniel Morse  0:10  
How special is he coming in? Hot,

Scot Maupin  0:13  
right?

Adam Braus  0:19  
Straight from where are you hailing from right now?

Daniel Morse  0:22  
I am one of those digital nomads. So I fly by night I swim by day and in the afternoons, I take a tea

Adam Braus  0:32  
kind of triathlete thing. Yeah, exactly. So this is Dan Morris, everybody. Dan Morris has a lot of things. polymath of Skylines. But he's going to talk to us about his solution, which we're super, are super down to here. Shall we go straight into it? Is that Is that enough? Yes, production as I can

Scot Maupin  0:56  
think we'll get the green.

Adam Braus  0:57  
Okay. Dan, just just shoot, just shoot straight into it. What's the what's the solution, and then we'll talk about

Daniel Morse  1:04  
this solution is called Social prescribing. And it's doctors prescribing community activity, such as arts, nature, volunteering, things that are already happening in a neighborhood, close to a local clinic,

Scot Maupin  1:19  
social prescribing, okay, I'm gonna need more explanation, because I don't know that I have my head wrapped around it quite yet.

Daniel Morse  1:27  
So imagine that you are a patient, you go into the doctor, and you are moderately anxious or depressed or lonely. Okay, and you tell the doctor that, and what will the doctor do typically, SR SSRIs? Because drugs tell you to go to therapy, right? Well, it turns out in the UK, they started realizing that there are other alternatives. And they basically interview people and say, What are your interests, and they'll connect you to a local group. So there might be a local nature walk that happens Mondays at four, there might be a community garden, there might be a volunteering opportunity to serve food at a soup kitchen, there might be a local arts group that gets together. And the idea is that all these things over the past five years have growing evidence bases on their positive impacts on health. So that is kind of converging with a loneliness epidemic. That research is showing, as with you have severe loneliness that impacts on your health.

Adam Braus  2:33  
Listen up, Scott.

Scot Maupin  2:36  
Taking notes right now.

Daniel Morse  2:40  
The impacts we can talk after Scott, please stay here you have a new friend. I know I know the secrets I'm up to seven. But anyways, some research came out by Julian hotline said that being lonely if you're kind of chronically lonely for a long period of time, it can be akin to a health impact mortality impact, akin to smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

Adam Braus  3:02  
Wow. And you don't even get to look at nearly as cool as smoking 15

Daniel Morse  3:05  
cigarettes but you smell better you sound true and you put them

Adam Braus  3:09  
kissable you're very kissable.

Scot Maupin  3:11  
Also, imagine if you smoke 15 Cigarettes, by yourself alone every day that you're doubling it up. That's terrible.

Daniel Morse  3:17  
Yeah, I mean, like philosophy. Read this study, read the study. You'll you'll you'll see the different grades. You're like Sean Paul, sorry.

Scot Maupin  3:24  
This is not moving in the direction of health.

Adam Braus  3:27  
You're saying double the impact. be lonely and smoke cigarettes. Yeah, get the good then you really aren't like John pulsar? Didn't he say? Hell is other people. That's a famous smart quote. I don't know. Yeah. French existentialist philosopher. So there's a lonely so there's a loneliness epidemic. What does that mean?

Daniel Morse  3:48  
The Surgeon General in 2019. Actually, before COVID His name is Vivek Murthy. He did a tour around the states in must have been 2016 When the opioid crisis was really kind of at its peak. There's been tons of research about it. It's been on the news that most people kind of are familiar with it. This sort of secondary thought about it that came from his research that didn't get as much publicity as that when he looked at like the people who were taking opioids and kind of bounced back and the people who didn't, there's kind of a common thread that that is sort of an tangible of like, these people had somewhat destitute lives, like they weren't very connected to community. And the more research is coming out that people feel more disconnected, people feel more lonely. It's it's becoming something that's in the national for forefront and the research is also coming out about the health impacts. So it's actually a priority of the Surgeon General now to address loneliness. And I think the pandemic accelerated this, and I'll say, you know, one of the one of the things that caught my attention on the sort of on social prescribing is that the intervention was really invented and popularized in the UK and around 2018 and spread and within three years later became national policy. So you can go to any clinic and see a general practitioner. And if you are feeling this, they'll connect you to what's called a link worker, who's the person who kind of gives you the social prescription. So I was so blown away by how this how fast how fast three years, that's unprecedented.

Scot Maupin  5:24  
I mean, that's gotta mean, for something to move that fast through government. That means they've got to be seeing some real signs of success, like strong everywhere.

Daniel Morse  5:33  
There's, there's signs of success, I think, the signs of success, a lot of it actually is evidence based, but actually what drove it is that it was more of a grassroots movement, that the idea caught on, and the clinic started doing it. And it was already happening. It was more of like the government playing catch up and sing. Let's provide some national infrastructure. Part of it too, is like, you know, I'm so fascinated by how movements happen and how change happens in the UK. Actually, part of it was cultural, because crazy story, there was this young member of parliament, who kind of like an ACO fit, you're not necessarily like radical AOC AOC yep, yep. Who her whole thing was loneliness. And she was like, 32 Cool. And she was doing it was kind of like somewhat of an interesting topic. But then she actually was murdered. Oh, my God. And it became this huge like, commemorates of her life. And so I think that actually influenced it too.

Adam Braus  6:33  
So there was there was kind of in memoriam? Yes. Paper articles. And then her issue per political issue was loneliness. Yeah, so Okay, so she was she did the huge survey in the UK and then really revealed it so so here in America was like this surgeon general thing kind of rows kind of made that become a little more popular there. They had a whole member of totally their parliament,

Daniel Morse  6:53  
they also have an issue of, you know, a part of it is structural, too, because in the UK, there's universal health care, right, so everyone can do it. And remember, remember when Obamacare was being passed, there's all these old people like, I don't want to have to wait, you know, three months to get an appointment in right. Sure. And so there's there's overcrowding in the areas and they found that 60% of people go to the doctor for a non medical issue.

Adam Braus  7:17  
Oh, great. So this is almost like a in the in the realm of preventative care,

Daniel Morse  7:21  
preventative care, addressing social determinants of health Exactly. Determinants

Adam Braus  7:25  
of Health. Oh, dang, that jargon. It's just like, I just could curl up with that. You have any more jargon? You could never okay, we'll try to get more jargon. I just love it.

Daniel Morse  7:37  
You got to earn it. Okay. Okay.

Scot Maupin  7:39  
As I hear about this, it's reminding me in ways about like the, the famous rat experiment where they had a rat in a cage, and they gave them the choice to hit the heroin button or the not heroin or whatever. And they would hit it over and over again, they're like, see, addictive rats. And then somebody noticed the cage is terrible. Of course, that's the only thing that they can do. And they gave them a much nicer cage. And they found way different, not

Adam Braus  8:02  
just a nicer cage, a rat paradise. Oh, they know about Yeah, they create a rat paradise that had all these other rats and they had like all these tubes and colors and like rat games, they could play a

Scot Maupin  8:15  
fulfilling environment right, which is what it sounds like you're describing

Daniel Morse  8:19  
Chuckie Cheese, but not for human rights. And you don't have access to its roots are of rodents. Yes.

Adam Braus  8:26  
The rodent roots of Chucky Cheese Of course.

Scot Maupin  8:28  
Yeah. In a rodent Chucky Cheese, there's a small v one. Small human robotic human dances in front of a they love it.

Adam Braus  8:36  
You know, animatronic rock bands? Really kind of was like just a Chucky Cheese thing. Why don't we have more of those?

Scot Maupin  8:42  
I don't know. I

Adam Braus  8:43  
enjoyed it, didn't you?

Scot Maupin  8:44  
unanswerable question. I totally. I feel like that technology probably got diverted. And I just gave away

Adam Braus  8:52  
military from the multiverse animatronic

Scot Maupin  8:55  
and animatronic

Adam Braus  8:56  
bands. Yeah, that was gonna be next week's.

Daniel Morse  8:59  
Well, I think it's really interesting that you bring up that study, because that study itself is sort of a cause and effect thing. And that's, that's all what sciences? What, what's the variable we're manipulating? How does that influence someone's outcome? What's interesting about social interactions is that it's not like you take a pill, and it has this very predictable chemical impact on your body. If you involve someone in social activity, and let's say they're depressed, they might get in, you know, go to a social event, and then they might get invited to make a friend get invited to work out with them. Or they might now get involved with an activity that's purposeful for them. You're

Adam Braus  9:36  
saying these things are compounding? Yes. So they so they, if you give them a pill, they just take a pill and in some ways, you just get more dependent on that pill and doesn't necessarily unlock things in your life potentially, right might just be kind of keeping you off the edge or something. But with this, you know, you go and you volunteer, or you go and you work at a community garden, all of a sudden you're in a garden, you're gonna get fresh fruit, fresh veggies. polls, you know, and that's nice because then that aids your health as well. You're getting exercise, also you're socializing? Is it more about the sort of socializing aspect? Or is it more about the kind of getting off out of your house and like on your feet and moving around, like, physically,

Daniel Morse  10:16  
it's those but I'd say that it's, it's something more central, which is giving you a greater sense of agency and control over your health. Because when we went to school, when we learned about health, it was like, eat, you know, it's exercise, diet, sleep, but there really are these new emerging categories of being purposeful, engaging in creative work, giving, the research on volunteering actually shows that people who volunteer, their health improves more so than the person receiving the volunteering, which is kind of profound. It's like, it's, it's, it answers the question, yes, it is good for you to be altruistic. And so when you look at all these different activities, they they affect other people, too, like if people are volunteering that affects others in the community. And so when you think about social prescribing at scale, like imagine if it's across the states, there's now 10 million more people volunteering, imagine how that changes that could bridge political divide that can bridge social divides, that could create more civic activism. Oh, yeah. And, and so like, there's, there's really strong ripple effects from this sort of stuff.

Scot Maupin  11:22  
So it helped me understand what would this look like if I'm, if I'm feeling lonely, and I go in to see a doctor, and I'm either hypothetical or pale, right, hypothetical, another person who's not definitely me. But if I go in to see a doctor being

Adam Braus  11:37  
all the time, like, I'm literally paying, like 14 times, just someone else, hypothetically, what would he tell me? What would you tell me if I told you that I was doing that

Scot Maupin  11:45  
job? And if I go, if I go in, and I say, Hey, I'm feeling lonely? Um, I'm not open to medication right now. But what what type of like, does the doctor going to prescribe? What is that

Daniel Morse  11:57  
I'll give an example. So I'll give an example of how it works in the UK. So you'd go, you know, you'd be checking in, you might say, you know, my best friend moved away. So it's been a transition or, you know, my mom, whatever, whatever the change is, if they kind of get a sense of moderately anxious, depressed or lonely, the doctor will then say, hey, well, there's this thing that we're doing that's kind of like a supplement to traditional healthcare, which is called Social prescribing. So in the UK, they connect you to someone different than the doctor, because the doctor only has like 10 minutes with each patient. They're called the link worker, kind of like a community health worker, and this person will interview you on your interests. So they'll know Scott, you like comedy, they'll know Scott, like boogie boarding, correspondence,

Adam Braus  12:38  
absolutely interest, just blogging to just

Daniel Morse  12:41  
anything, anything involving a buggy. And they, they would then have a menu of, of, let's say, 100, different community activities, things that happen regularly, things that are already existing, not necessarily the clinic's putting on. And they would know you like boogie boarding you like comedy, and they suggest you connect with one of these places. And so you know, that's like signposting to different things. But also, a lot of it too, can be coaching you because if you if you're lonely, you're more reticent to engage socially. And a lot of the coaching is to help you grow a sense of agency and confidence to do it. And they might text you before text you after. So I think what's exciting about this stuff is that we have more tools in our toolkit than we realize. So it's not just the prescription, but it's changing the way we're thinking about health. Yeah, and thinking about if I'm depressed, maybe I just don't do Netflix or exercise, let me like try these other things. Because there's new evidence to support it, creating health.

Scot Maupin  13:37  
And you're like circumventing the whole set, you're like, instead of attacking the symptoms, or treating just the symptoms, we're trying to go back to the source or whatever, to kind of really change your environment and make it more to just kind of read Yeah, erase the erase the whole problem, read paradise, rat paradise, the goal, they should call it that should be very popular.

Daniel Morse  14:01  
Rat paradise for humans.

Adam Braus  14:03  
One thing that seems to me really provocative about this idea on a more like, almost like philosophical level, is that especially American society, but Western society in general, Western philosophy is very individualistic, right? And, you know, if you think of kind of Descartes, as the kind of Premier Western philosopher, you know, he talks about Cogito ergo Ergo assume, right? Those are all first person singular, right? I think, therefore I am. And that's kind of like a fundamental Western philosophical idea. Not a very good one. But it's very common. It's sort of the baseline. But if you go back way further to like an Aristotle figure, his whole premise was that human beings are social animals. He says that all the time. social animal, he says it once in the politics at a very important time. He says a very loud, maybe he doesn't say a lot of times, but he asks, You know what animal is the most social animal, the Be? The ant? Clearly he says it is the human because they have speech. As he says, and so this almost is like a, I don't want to, you know, say it's socialist, because it's not socialists, it's just healthcare. I mean, you can do it, who doesn't matter who's paying, you're not saying who pays for it, you're just saying it's an intervention. But the intervention itself is admitting to our social natures as people instead of just focusing on Well, you've got to get your SUV and your single family, you know, home and you're, you know, you've got to consume these things or take this pill because you, you, you, it's like, no, actually, you're kind of part of this larger tapestry. And the more you engage in that, and the better, you will actually be healthier, you'll be a better sort of node in the network.

Scot Maupin  15:39  
Yeah, I think and like identifying that we're dealing with like a net, that people fall through sometimes. And if we can make that net stronger, make those holes smaller, you know, then fewer people fall through. And this is an easy way that kind of just strengthens everywhere across the board. Like I think, even if I wasn't feeling like especially lonely, this sounds like an exciting, I was like, oh, man, give me a link worker, we'd love to find a way to have someone who would figure out how to engage my my interest in my skills and what I could contribute to like, the needs, the spots where I could do that.

Daniel Morse  16:15  
I think something that's really cool about it, too, is if you know, you're talking about lots of different sectors of society. We're actually hosting a conference with the Harvard design school at the at the public health school in October, and we were writing the invite and we're like, inviting 20 people, it's kind of a small kind of kickoff for a lot of the movers and shakers.

Adam Braus  16:35  
Not after this podcast comes out.

Scot Maupin  16:39  
You don't want a six? Yeah.

Adam Braus  16:41  
You're gonna get the SF TM bomb.

Daniel Morse  16:45  
And we were counting and there's like, I think we counted like nine sectors of society who are involved in this, from research, arts, local government, healthcare meetup.com. Was there Yeah, yeah. meetup.com is actually doing research. So this this is this is, this is more than social prescribing. This is our next chapter of health. Because if you if you look back at the history of healthcare, it's interesting. We, you know, we think about health as like, Okay, this is the research, this is what it is, but it's actually constantly evolving. Because modern healthcare really only was birthed in the late 1800s at Johns Hopkins, where they took the the European research model where you're teaching, and you're doing experiments and lab work, and you're kind of using scientific method to rigorously do it before it was like a kind of a mom and pop, sort of trade. And then public health was only invented in 1910, after like, people researched an outbreak of a disease in New Orleans. And then you look at like, a lot of a health and diet kick is really only happened in the 60s 70s therapy really took off in the 70s. I think, within our lifetimes, meditation and mindfulness and mental health has been become a huge boom. And so it's, it's you look back at history, it's naive to think like, Okay, we did it. Yeah, we're finished. Like, we figured it all out. And like, and when it comes to social health, that's the term social health. Oh, wow. It's hard. It's really hard to research for the reasons that we were talking about before. But the research is still work. It's kind of the precipice. It's like the next the cutting edge of stuff that we're doing, because there's so many variables involved. And I think it's really, really exciting. So, you know, when I think about this work, it's kind of because there's so many people involved, I like to say that it's like a societal symphony, doing this stuff. Because I can say like, I'll give you an example. Like, I was like, I gotta hook at Cleveland Clinic. I got kind of got a gun in there. And so we actually have a pilot project happening at the in the geriatrics department. There's 17 geriatricians. And it's like, it's funny, because it's so easy to give someone a pill. It's like, you put an order with Merck, and then they ship it. And then like, you know, there's three things you got to think about, like, how much how often, and then like if there's one of the symptoms, but like, it's so hard to implement social prescribing. So I'm in like this little car that I rented from the airport, and I'm driving around to like the local volunteering commission.

Adam Braus  19:19  
It's a full size car, though. It's not just like a toy car. Like a clown car.

Daniel Morse  19:23  
It wasn't a clown car. I mean, that would be a

Scot Maupin  19:25  
little doctor prescribed that he needed to drive in a little tiny clown car.

Adam Braus  19:30  
Automobile prescribing really insists the idea we're talking

Daniel Morse  19:33  
we prefer carnival car currently.

Adam Braus  19:36  
Not currently the car

Scot Maupin  19:37  
were surprisingly large number of people in the car you would not, you would not really be

Daniel Morse  19:42  
part of the act or the ACT.

Adam Braus  19:45  
So you drove to Cleveland Clinic.

Daniel Morse  19:46  
So so I'm in Cleveland, and I like I met up with people at the parks department. I met up with people in the volunteering commission who run AmeriCorps. I met up with people in like the local Foundation, we've talked to health insurers. So it's what's crazy is that it, you're, you're, you're channeling people, people between these already existing assets that people aren't making use of. And what's crazy about social prescribing that I think is really bringing could bring a new chapter to the way that, honestly our society functions is that, you know, there's there's incentives that aren't being like taken advantage of because the, the Parks Department would like to say, we doubled our, the amount of people who come to our parks, the arts industry is very interested in social prescribing. Because if Arts is seen as a way to that Croute, to create health, which the research is showing, then artists could have newfound work at hospitals. And so there's something really special and powerful about this that like, the more this happens, the more that these these organizations kind of send people to each other. The metrics of one person's success is the metrics of success for others. So in New York City, there's there's a program for nature prescriptions for folks with dementia, and their the parks department is considering like, maybe we should staff someone on our team on social prescribing, because we have accessibility goals, and social prescribing can meet that. So I think it's just really exciting thinking about how we're really at the precipice not only of health research, but also like the way society interacts and collaborates. And it's structured,

Adam Braus  21:29  
like civil society coming together. I mean, that's really what it is, right? This largely civil civil society.

Scot Maupin  21:36  
Well, that's what I was gonna ask. I mean, in in the UK, they have a nationalized health care system. So if it gets implemented, it's everywhere at once. What's now I'm jealous, and I want this here. But what's the next steps to doing it in our system here in the United States? What, what does that look like here?

Daniel Morse  21:53  
So there's basically a thing like the army, but you sign up and you join this movement, you give away three years.

Scot Maupin  22:01  
I was ready to go. Here's my pen. Let's do it. I would be way too kidnapper. But someone's just like, oh, we just need three years of your life. I'm like, Okay, tell me what it's windowless. As long as I find out the first couple months, I'm that's fine, whatever.

Adam Braus  22:14  
So you're, you're asking a classic SMSF TM question. How do we get into like, how would you do?

Scot Maupin  22:20  
How would we what how would we get this now that you've maybe wanted? How do I get?

Daniel Morse  22:25  
So it's a bit of a chicken and egg problem, right? We need the research, to get healthcare to kind of be on board, but we need adoption, to get the research. The other thing is that you need to have awareness and public interest and public interest can drive policy like it happened in the UK with the the PISA passing away. And also public interest can drive the evidence because we've seen, you know, climate change trends politically and then then he is finding a ton of stuff, right? So, you know, it kind of starts with a chicken and egg problem. And this is something that I was thinking about. And basically what we did like, you can imagine it's like a chicken and egg. It's like a triangle, all three of these things, evidence, adoption, public interest, they're all like pointing to each other and saying, like, we oh, well, we need this for this. But I think what's really in the center is bringing together a community of people and who who have hands and all these different things, who can build buzz and get excitement? So

Adam Braus  23:24  
it's like a poster child, or like a California roll. There's no the history of sushi, the history of sushi. So so so you know 50 years ago, nobody ate sushi except for in America except for you know recent Japanese immigrants. That was the only people Yeah, well 50 years ago.

Scot Maupin  23:42  
Well, were you alive? No. But anyway, so

Adam Braus  23:45  
the so nobody was eating sushi like except for these American Japanese immigrants who had it from their you know culture from coming from Japan. But everybody else you know Latinos in America you know white people and stuff they didn't eat sushi and now everybody eats sushi everybody does it really? Right. So how did it happen? Well, it turns out the way someone in California I don't know who but someone was like we need to get make it so there's a consumable form of sushi that like non Japanese immigrants will eat like just run of the mill you know, European people eat so they made the California roll and it was engineered specifically to not be like scary so they put the rice on the outside to cover the seaweed because the seaweed kind of freaked people out. And then they put on the inside they put artificial crab meat and sour cream and avocado. It was sour cream. orig Yeah, sour cream, I think yeah, sour cream, kick crab meat and avocado, which are like California. And you know, people eat that because it just sounds like normal, whatever food and so the whole idea of like raw fish was like out of the picture and there's not even seaweed because it's like, covered up. And then they started selling a lot of California rolls that could people started to eat because it was this hip thing. It was supposed to be healthy and kind of cultural or whatever, multicultural and then they start did people get used to that then they're like, Well, what else do you have behind the counter? You know, so then people got into did more and more. And then finally they are eating like rasa Shimi. You know, fatty tuna, you know, with whatever, super seaweed, you know, whatever stuff. So yeah, we might need a California roll for social prescribing.

Scot Maupin  25:12  
We need a gateway sushi,

Adam Braus  25:13  
a gateway sushi that

Scot Maupin  25:16  
opens the door. It sounds like you've got programs starting up in different spots, and then those will generate data that

Daniel Morse  25:26  
then those are the California rolls. Yeah, yeah.

Scot Maupin  25:29  
But is that I mean, are you working with it, you would have to work with different giant insurance companies or with medical? I don't know the medical landscape well enough.

Daniel Morse  25:40  
Yeah. So we kind of see ourselves as a catalyst, sort of, you know, I was working on we're launching a newsletter, and I'm, I'm kind of calling it like the social prescribing town square, where there's lots of people who are trying to implement this, lets have it be the place where ideas are shared, where we have a monthly gathering where, you know, all the lessons learned. But a lot of it is like, we're trying to start a grassroots movement, like in the UK. And so there's a group of 35 therapists in Utah who are working to implement it. There's implementation projects in Cleveland, like I mentioned, there's one that's gonna be sprouting up in the East Bay here, there is a really impressive project called by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, where they are giving free museum passes, and they call it culture as cool as prescription. I love that there's an incredible person. And basting, who's a professor at University of Minnesota, who has just, it's obvious when you hear it, but it's absolutely brilliant. She has a program called TimeSlips, where she they go into memory homes, but basically, you know, the, when you're working with people who have Alzheimer's, it's, it's really distressing, especially for the families of these people. Because like, they're just, they're forgotten, you know. But what they do is she engages these people in they, she puts on plays with the people who are, who have Alzheimer's, being in it. And so the whole philosophy is, let's use art as a means of connection. And let's not get so rooted in the past because time slips away, time slips away. And you see, it's kind of amazing what happens, because people's cognition starts getting stimulated. And sometimes people actually, like, more life comes into them, can they have, can I rewind

Adam Braus  27:43  
a little bit to like, the medical intervention side of it, like, if you go in and you say, you know, I have depression, or, you know, I feel blue or, you know, so loneliness. Those are all like, you know, kind of the symptoms of like, the worried, well, you don't have a severe mental illness, you're not like, you know, suicidal ideation or something. But what about if you go in, and you're like, I have really bad headaches, and then your doctors, like, tell me about your day to day life. And then without you really realizing it, you're like, Well, I'm alone all day, you know, and I have these sort of, you know, naturally the comorbidity is actually the headaches, not actually what the real slow source of the problem is, might be this kind of loneliness, or sort of lack of social interaction. Will the doctor say, you know, chronic headaches, prescription social prescribing? Like, can they prescribe it for not just kind of the symptoms of the word? Well, can they also prescribe it for like back pain? Or, you know, something? That's related?

Daniel Morse  28:37  
It's a great question. And I think there's something really important philosophically about social prescribing that I think will back into your question. So I'll kind of go back into that we're going to we're going to kind of do like you'd like booking, you know, we're going to do like, my favourite.

Adam Braus  28:51  
Take that little clown car and yeah.

Daniel Morse  28:55  
So, so I think Western medicine is super, super top down, that the doctor is the authority, the doctor tells you what to do, the doctor has your solutions. But the thing about like, and that works, if you're, you're just like dealing with bodies, literal bodies, but if it's something that's social, it requires a sense of agency from the person doing it. So, you know, when you ask the question, would they just be like, Okay, you have back pain, do social prescription or, you know, it's less of like a, like a direction, like a directive or it's more of there's a word called co creative. So when you're meeting with a link worker, you're trying to come up with what's the best social prescription for you based on your interests, and so the link worker is bringing you their insights on what's happening in the community. And it's something that is very focused on if you want to do it so the doctor wouldn't necessarily say back here's back pain do social prescription they would say There's this thing called Social prescription that's this, is this something that you might be interested in exploring, and so,

Adam Braus  30:06  
so but they could prescribe it for things that weren't just mild mood disorders. And they could also prescribe it for like, other physical ailments that the doctor knows there's a causal relationship between having like too much or too little social stimulation. And this, you know, because a lot of mental things stress, stress, especially has immediate physical reactions. And as I don't know, I maybe this is a, I feel like this is a sort of gendered thing to a little bit like, as a dude, I feel like, I'll be like, I have a pain in my neck before I realized that it's because I'm stressed. And so I might even go to the doctor and be like, my neck hurts. So fix my neck. And then they're like, tell me a little bit about like, your day to day. And I'm like, Well, I get up at 830. And I work until 10pm, every day on my computer. And I'm like, Well, I think I found the problem, you know, the kids, so they can just, they can kind of do that. It doesn't have to be like the patient pay. They didn't say, okay, so it's sort of a it's a tool in their toolbox. Yes. And then they need that link worker to do it. Or do you think America do you think the American system if we had this really stark kind of full blown? Would it have a similar kind of separate worker? or would this go on? Like, would this go on to like a case managers list of things they could do? Or do you think it would be a completely other person?

Daniel Morse  31:22  
It's a great question it could take, it could take a couple of different forms. I think the reason why the doctors don't do it in the UK, and I think would be pretty similar case in the US, is because you really can't do that CO production that discovery will have what's a good fit social prescription with you when you have doctor's appointment. That's already 10 minutes. But in the US, I think some other outlets are I think therapy is, you know, this is where we're seeing some traction, because they already probably could guess what a good social prescription because therapists often know, their patients, they have 50 minute meetings. There's also some exploration we're doing into employers, because the employer benefit space has really skyrocketed during COVID. Because players realize like, okay, most of our patients are experiencing mental health issues because of the pandemic, we could provide this benefit, we'll get extra. So, you know, there's some possibility there, there, we are talking to some companies that, you know, the names of that I won't share, because I can, that builds even more hype for the conference. Yeah. Yeah, there, there will be a grand reveal of the conference, who are exploring it, but I think that's it, I think it can, you know, the community health workers in the US are absolutely incredible. They, there's someone who could do social prescription, these workers are mostly working with people who are low resourced, and they're they're already giving prescriptions for food, housing assistance, legal assistance. This is kind of like a parallel movement that is probably five years ahead of ours. And there's a lot of robust research that is happening actually through siren and UCSF if anyone's interested. And those prescriptions are here. But I think in in the States, it's likely a link worker role, or therapy, or employers or incorporating into community health workers. I think that there's also a possibility of physicians in their 10 minute meetings doing what what is called signposting where you're you're not necessarily having you know, I'm not discovering that Scott likes comedy and boogie boarding. But I have my one pager and we talk for 30 seconds and say, there's evidence that hearts nature, volunteering is good. Here's, here's the stuff you can reach out on your own. And, you know, if the research shows that that doesn't stick, but I think it's central to, to providing an education for people that you can do the source of, it's kind of like what you're talking about, Adam? How, like, you have neck pain, but like, it's not, it's not just that something's wrong with your neck. I think when you're like I've, I've gone through depression, you're you get caught in the same mental scripts and in the same routine, and you can become lethargic. And one of the one of the reasons why social prescribing works and community activity works is because it's a stimulation, like Majan go, you know, if if I wanted to exercise more, and I'm depressed, like I could just like be like, Okay, I'm gonna put on a video but I'm at like, the, I know, the thing that will actually get me out of bed is if someone knocks on my door and drags me out at seven in the morning. And then when I'm there, there's tons of positive reinforcement from everyone around you and high fives and so like, we can't see these things in isolation and the stimulation to your cognition can get you thinking differently can get you out of a funk and get you you know, there's there's research on nature that one of the hypotheses, why nature is so beneficial for your health. office because we live in these incredibly structured environments where you know, there's right angles everywhere. But in nature, you know, when you're you're literally wandering around a forest, you have to be highly aware because you're not routed in a particular direction. So it brings you into the present. And so I think it's, I think it's interesting like, we, it's impossible to measure the impacts of these things, because every forest is different, every person is different. And but, but still, like, I think, in principle, a lot of this stuff makes intuitive sense. And it's it is exciting that researchers who are way smarter than I am at studying this stuff are finding compelling evidence, and it's catching the attention of the CDC. I mean, we had an article that actually CDC referenced, that's huge in their newsletter. Wow. So you wrote an article, I didn't write an arm or someone on your trip, it was a Time Magazine, it was an article that I want to opt out of the clown car. I typed it with a typewriter with 20s. Yeah.

Scot Maupin  35:59  
This is really exciting to me, because I also have dealt with depression before. And so the idea that you're not just like a one time going, aha, I'm gonna reach out to you once. But you're really building a whole system so that when a person dealing with that, or if they if or when they feel like, venturing out, that system is there, and it's not like I missed the bus, or I missed the one train, because there you do run those scripts, and then you start telling yourself, you're like, Oh, well, I've missed, I've missed my opportunity. So I might as well not care about anything, whatever. But if you have an open standing space, where, once you're ready to engage with it, it's there ready for you that that seems really exciting to me. And I think that can help a lot of people.

Daniel Morse  36:41  
You need an infrastructure, and often people just need a catalyst, right? Like, I'll share kind of a ridiculous story. But in high school, I went to Nike Running camp in Vermont. So there's a bunch of like, teenage JV cross country, boys runners going going to Vermont, and

Adam Braus  37:01  
they're brought on far too sultry of a voice for what you're describing. They're like the least sexy thing I can just imagine. Like they tell you about these cross country teenage

Scot Maupin  37:11  
boys is just like what sprinting cross country or what? What goes on at around a camp. Okay, so,

Adam Braus  37:18  
so well, you know what I'm gonna tell you, I think it's gonna be running, running.

Daniel Morse  37:25  
So they brought in, they brought in this motivational speaker, and he had spoken for, like the Washington Nationals and stuff. And he's exactly what you'd imagine, imagine someone who like to drink three cups of coffee. He's literally like pacing across the stage yelling at you. And he goes, he goes, What's the hardest part about running? You know, in, like acid, and stuff like that. It's the finish line. You know, it's all these people coming out with all these?

Scot Maupin  37:52  
No, no, no,

Daniel Morse  37:53  
he says, The hardest part about running is getting on your shoes and walking out the door. Oh, but I think I think it's true. Like, like, if you're feeling depressed, and you're in bed all day, and you've got the same routine, you're in such a rut. And again, I want to I want to kind of preface this that like, you know, I'm not a doctor, I'm not giving medical advice. It's just a perspective, right premises

come at the beginning of things. I am your epilogue. Scott, you said you edited Haislip the preface at the beginning.

Scot Maupin  38:30  
Hi, everybody, welcome to the multiverse. I'm Scott. No.

Daniel Morse  38:41  
But But I, you know, it's interesting because like, there's so many volunteer opportunities, often like most people, if they went, and they actually help someone, and they were greeted with gratitude from all these people, who wouldn't be so good for them. But like, it's so hard to get on your shoes and walk out the door. And I think that's what social prescribing does, because it's not just signposting you to an event, there's a link worker who you feel understands, you might shoot you a text message before after checking in with you. And if there's an infrastructure where someone is greeting you, like we have in Cleveland, like we have in these other places, it it's like it's just the catalyst that we need. Because I'm I'm kind of fascinated by the fact that there's so many lonely people, it's like, just connect with each other. Right? Oh, good. Yeah. But you know, there's, there's a little bit of startup costs to all this.

Scot Maupin  39:34  
No, but I have a friend and it's very much I mean, it's very much like you're saying it, we can both get down and, and be like even messaging on the internet and be like, Man, I'm feeling down or whatever. But if we make a plan to hang out together or make a plan, then it gets both of us. You know, it has a thing that we're we're accountable for something and it's more likely to get both of us into a spot where we can roll out of that funk, you know,

Adam Braus  39:59  
yeah, I'm in trying to, you know, coming out of the pandemic and San Francisco there's still like, I've been in other parts of the country and the people have kind of been over the pandemic for like a year. But in San Francisco for some reason people like continue to do like a lot of masking and social distancing. And, and there's this ice Enos still is it's unfortunate anyways, I've been trying to like force out of that, get out of that intentionally. And so recently, I joined like a draw, like, you'd go and draw once a week at this bar is a bar. We're not drinking, really, but it's just like a nice, chill place. And everyone's drawing. And it's been super fun. And I've already made like, a couple of friends and, and I feel like, wow, yeah, if someone had really asked me like, Oh, what do you really, you know, not that I was. I mean, I have also, like you guys said, I've also struggled with depression in the past. But I mean, pandemic, I think everybody needs like, everybody needs to, like hit the gas and like, accelerate out of this pandemic. And so this is like, very timely. I think

Daniel Morse  40:53  
that I don't know if you had this experience. But like, yeah, sometimes if you if you meditate or something, I can just assume that you both do since we're in San Francisco. You know, sometimes you meditate and you come out of it. And then you're like, a little like, dissociated. You're just like, I for me, like after being in the pandemic. Like, when I started socializing. I was like, I felt like I like needed to get like off the training wheels. I was just like, oh, conversation, right?

Scot Maupin  41:20  
It was so clunky, right? For a while you're just like, I, I forgot how to interact with humans. Same. Yeah, for sure.

Adam Braus  41:28  
So for in my case, you have to know how to interact with humans before the pandemic to feel that way. After continuing.

Scot Maupin  41:34  
Loss, nothing. You're like I was born,

Adam Braus  41:38  
everyone came and start acting like me, it was good. What so? What, okay, you're building a movement? I'm on board. Scott, I think is probably on. I'm on board. Yeah, we're on board. So what about someone who's listening right now? Like, what should they do? Like, they can't like tell their doctor to start social prescribing doctors gonna be like, get the hell out of my office. I'm so busy. You know, right. So what?

Scot Maupin  42:02  
So don't you dare bring it get out? Have

Adam Braus  42:04  
I been on WebMD? For the last 10 hours, I have 16 cancers, and you should start social prescribing,

Scot Maupin  42:09  
you need a different doctor?

Adam Braus  42:10  
The response is no, that's not what the doctor says

Daniel Morse  42:13  
that the patient is. It's interesting that you say I mean, you're you're joking around. Yeah, my colleague, Kate Mulligan, who's who's really been driving the Canadian movement, and they've had some great adoption, she'll literally go on the radio shows, and people will call their doctors Oh, like, this is great. And so if you're interested in this, I think, one if you're someone who you feel like would benefit from this, know that the only limitation is yourself in terms of going to engage in the arts, nature, volunteering, of course, the infrastructure that you're mentioning, Scott isn't there. So it is harder, but like, I think that this is what's what's amazing about this is that this is a new chapter of health that we we need to internalize as a new tool in our own tool belts, that we can use, regardless of the health system. Here's like, the end game that I'm looking forward to is like, and our goal is 2035. And there's a reason for that. But is that by 2035, social prescribing will be made available to every American. And it'll be in the curriculum, so that there's kids, that when you know, it becomes default, that when you're feeling down, you know, there might be a lot of causes to that there's there may not be an exclusive solution. But something you might want to try is do a creative project think what might be purposeful, do that maybe give to someone either volunteering or just your time, you could

Adam Braus  43:38  
use the national nurse hotline to us. Yeah, well, yeah.

Scot Maupin  43:41  
Like I can't, I can't manufacture my own antidepressant pills. But I could theoretically operate as my own link worker, and identify those types of opportunities for myself and either do it for absence or friend. Yeah. But in absence of in absence of that infrastructure, like you're saying, you can, you're not locked out of this, you could create your own and start doing it and reap the benefits, just like they do in places where it is the thing.

Adam Braus  44:07  
We can also do this for each other. Yeah. And so you can, especially because a lot of this, I mean, we were kind of running out of time, so I don't have time, but I'm having this whole thought in my mind about like, justice. So you know, like, some people don't have to transportation, or they don't have the time or they don't have the money to go because these things implicitly have some cost. And anyways, we don't really have time to get into all that. I'm sure there's fantastic. I mean, I'm sure that the whole dimension of the whole thing, but but you know if we do have the resources, or we can help someone else, so your friend says hey, I'm really bummed out. If we kind of, you know, not force on them but say like, oh, well do you want like why don't we plan something fun to do? And now you're kind of acting like that link worker to extra reminds me man. I'm like name dropping like crazy. This is the professor and me Aristotle Descartes. Now we're going to bring Freud into it. So Freud actually wanted psychotherapy to be something not only that experts did, because he wanted experts psychotherapists to do it, but he also also wanted kind of everyone to know about psychotherapy and to be kind of doing light, not not really deep psychotherapy, but like, you know, how are you feeling, you know, oh, I'm sorry, you know, like connecting and doing that kind of low level sort of psychotherapy with everyone all the time. And he thought that would actually make all society less neurotic, like less depressed and less anxious and less neurotic. And so in a way where, you know, that's, that's an opportunity, as we build this before, there's like a top down infrastructure like they might have just kind of dropped in, in UK, we can do a build up kind of social infrastructure.

Daniel Morse  45:34  
Totally. And I'll reference it real quick, since you mentioned equity and access, I think. So doing these activities, in some ways can be cheaper than pills. And it's, I like to think about all this stuff as a supplement to what the doctor is already telling you to do. It's not definitely not a replacement. But, but like, you can do creative work with a pen and paper, you can like call someone and support them. And you know, but I think in terms of like having it be accessible, we are working on an app that will be coming out soon, that you can search by zip code, and it pulls from meetup.com. It pulls from a lot of events. So it's kind of trying to aggregate the arts, nature, volunteering opportunities in your local area and your zip code. But, you know, to get back to your original question about like, how does this happen in the States, there's the personal part that we've been discussing. But we're also trying to aggregate resources and a community of practitioners, we actually have our first meeting of community of practitioners, there's going to be about a dozen people who have already said, Yes, I just sent out the invites Today, October 4, but you can go to social prescribing usa.com You know, there's, there's a sign up. That's where like, we're gonna house all the information. I think what's amazing about the UK is moving. And what we're trying to do here is that, like, any clinic can do it. You just have to, it's just hard work to make these connections. But the more that, you know, the structure of our newsletter is that work, it's going to have like a part that's called insights and shoutouts, which is basically I'm going to collect the insights from practitioners like like, and it's just going to be a bullet point list of like, here, the new insights about effectiveness and implementing this. And so what I said before about the New York City nature department like being like, maybe we should stop someone like that's, that's a really nice insight for the rest of the movement. So you can imagine this

Adam Braus  47:29  
kind of a watershed. Yeah. WaterShed for information. Totally. Yeah. And social prescribing

Scot Maupin  47:36  
US Social prescribing usa.com where people can go and sign up for that newsletter. Yeah. Okay. How else can people get in touch with you? Or like, connect with you in other spheres? What are your favorite social type? Yeah, that's the play. And

Daniel Morse  47:51  
I guess so I am at Twitter at at Def Morse. Two, three? Yes, that's correct. D, F, m o r s e two, three. I'm not on Twitter too often, but you can email me too, at social prescribing. usa@gmail.com

Scot Maupin  48:07  
There we go. Social prescribing, usa.com and social prescribing. usa@gmail.com

Daniel Morse  48:14  
I also Cleveland, clown cars, clown clown. vans.com. So we kind of have a shadow movement. Okay. That most of this is actually just to get leads for that other move.

Scot Maupin  48:28  
All of your social prescriptions involve people using clown cars. In Cleveland. It's yeah, I'm seeing a connection. Yeah.

Adam Braus  48:37  
I think one thing people should be socially prescribed to do is start Podcasts can be can be our own thing.

Scot Maupin  48:43  
No more competition. Okay, you're right. We were the last one door no more. But

Daniel Morse  48:48  
what would you what would you do to advance this movement? I mean, Adam,

Adam Braus  48:51  
I'm honestly thinking I'm on Yeah, it's a couple of years, that's true. The healthcare stuff is going to be I would say, not a growth area, I think it's just like the UK said, it's going to come from the people, then the people are going to like be pressuring their medical professionals and medical industry people to be adopting this, it's not going to come the other way. And why so just because they just, they're just bureaucratic, and they're, and they're very focused on other things like my whole family's doctors, they're focused on the next research paper that comes out about the next drug, or about the next. They're not, they're not also they have a very strong bias of thinking they have a very parent pejorative or sort of jaded view of the American patient. Like, hey, I could be telling this patient to like, take a walk every day, and I wouldn't have to give them their their blood pressure medication, but I'm never gonna get them to go on a walk every day. Here's your statin, you know, like they just throw the pill. And so what you're bringing is a real optimism about the ability for patients to actually take that sort of advice and do it has a lot to do with this link worker has allotted to this co creation idea which like the doctor is not capable really Oh, they're capable, but I mean, they don't have time to do it. So I like this. I think it is I when I first when you first told me about it. I was like, doctors are never going to do that. But when you explain the link worker thing that makes me think no, no, this is something that really could happen. What I think I think I think a hotline is actually a great idea. Like if you just had a hotline, and anybody could just call it and then you had people who would route to their phones, and they were all volunteers. And then when this one called that number, they would pick up and it would just be a social prescribing expert that could talk to you. And then they could either if it was a clinician, then you train the clinician and social prescribing, if it's a person, you just say, what's your zip code? And you like, help them decide Do you like act as that link worker in the moment, like that can be really powerful, actually. And then people would have this transformative experience of having been on the phone with a real person. And and then they go, Wow, that was, that's a real thing. And then they they go with the rest of their, you know, you could

Scot Maupin  50:51  
have a different number that is like for social prescribing emergencies, that goes to like a really prominent, the top social prescriber grabs in their rundown and volunteer at a farmers market right now. Yeah, yeah. They just they fix it. And yeah, save the day, which

Daniel Morse  51:07  
we need a James Bond.

Adam Braus  51:08  
Yeah. And then something like across the chasm thing is what I look for, too, because you're kind of doing your early adopters, your innovators, you need to think of a way that it gets like on the front page of The New York Times or, you know, someone's life is say, it's kind of like, remember when you guys use I don't remember how I remember this, but Al Gore's son was got a speeding ticket and a Prius.

Scot Maupin  51:32  
Get it? Like, do

Adam Braus  51:33  
you see how that the whole point is, everyone thinks praises are like weak. And so they wouldn't buy them, because they're just like weak, like good for the environment cars. But if someone gets a speeding ticket in it in it, then it's like, oh, it can go fast. Right. So it kind of it kind of is like this way where it kind of gets through the filter, and changes people's mind. I was like, this is like 20 years ago. But anyway, so something that like social prescribing saved this woman's life, because she was out volunteering, and like her house burned down. Now, I don't know, but somehow where it like because it doesn't really save your life in a way that you can, you're pulling sown from a burning car, it saves your life in this very gradual sort of way where it extends your life and improves your life. But you need but for people to put on the front page in your times it needs to be like pull the baby from the burning building. So how do you how do you present it in that way? You know,

Scot Maupin  52:24  
put thinking back to when you were saying this was getting popularized in the UK? I am. I am aware of them just recently creating a minister of loneliness like they have a bunch of ministers for different departments for Minister of Defense or whatever. Harry Potter made a minister Well, yeah, exactly. That's what they were using black cloak and we maybe we need someone like that. Who can spearhead we'd call it

Adam Braus  52:48  
a tsar, a czar loneliness czar? Isn't that what they call it? His government in America?

Scot Maupin  52:54  
I think they do. But it's true. It sounds very good. Just

Adam Braus  52:56  
call them Rasputin. I think Rasputin was the loneliness. So what do you mean those are government should have an official Summerson or his movement should have a person they like electing call that or something or

Scot Maupin  53:09  
just someone who's advocating for it. Like, sometimes they'll put a person in charge of like, physical fitness for the country or whatever, like a figurehead of some sort. That's a good idea. But I don't know, I just didn't bring bringing awareness to the situation feels like a huge step in getting adoption widespread. Well,

Daniel Morse  53:27  
you know, the, there's awareness and a couple of ways. There's awareness and like a sort of PR, like get the word out sort of way. But I think I'm not sure if it was the minister of loneliness, or it was a different department. But part of that initiative was they gave out I think it might have been like 30 would have been 30 million pounds in grants, like micro grants, for projects that nonprofits did, to address loneliness. And it was things like, we have a community center, we wanted to get like, a like, buy a bunch of games, and like have like 10 pizza nights and for $1,000 in there. There was this initiative that was a friend, I think I forget what they call it. Friendly benches, which is these parks, put a public bench and it says this is a friendly bench, which means if you're on it, it's assumed that you're open to chat with people. Yeah,

Scot Maupin  54:22  
talking to the stranger next to you isn't a rude thing anymore. It's kind of like I'm okay with that. I think that sounds fantastic. I am actually very excited and jealous of the British system that they have access to this. Yeah. So I've I've I'm on board. I've I'm way into it. I'm really happy you brought this to us today, Dan. Yes.

Adam Braus  54:40  
This is awesome. Definitely the loneliness and there's a there's a there's like the crisis of meaning as well. I feel it was tied in the same thing. There's a lot tied into this health outcomes diseases of despair, getting out of the pandemic. There's so much that's so, so important right now, with this. I really hope this movement takes off and hope we can purchase to pay more

Scot Maupin  55:01  
well and people can get in touch with Dan through his Twitter or through

Daniel Morse  55:05  
social prescribing. usa@gmail.com Social

Scot Maupin  55:09  
prescribing. usa@gmail.com I

Adam Braus  55:11  
just go into clown car stuff people can get in touch with Adam on Twitter. At AJ, AJ, br us Yep. AJ Ross

Scot Maupin  55:18  
people can hit me up at at Scott mopan SEO t ma UPI N. We'd love to hear from you.

Adam Braus  55:24  
You got to share your scribing Yeah. Awesome.

Scot Maupin  55:28  
It's been fantastic. Online. Thanks, everyone, for tuning in. Thank you, Dan, for joining us and bringing us this new solution. I'm excited. This is great.

Adam Braus  55:36  
Awesome. Thanks, everybody for listening. See you next time. See you next time. Bye. Bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai