It was a full house, during the keynote speech from Dr Howard S. Friedman, Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of California – Riverside.
His speech “Pathways to Health and Longevity” was very interesting indeed, as it explained his and his team’s work which focuses on a group of over 1500 people who were first studied as children in the 1920s and have been followed ever since – yes, it is the longest continuous cohort study ever conducted – in order to find an answer to the question that troubles most of us: Why do some people thrive well into old age while others become ill or die young?
The results and conclusions of this remarkable study were truly revealing and eye-opening as it uncovers important long-term pathways through which personality and social relationships relate to well-being and long life and it also reveals the flaws in centenarian studies and the weaknesses of society’s approaches to health promotion and health behaviour change.
