Thriving - by Christopher Forrest & Neal Halfon (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A new scientific framework for enabling all people to thrive across their full life course.

Why do some people thrive while others languish? And what would it take to change that? In Thriving, Christopher Forrest and Neal Halfon argue that the answer lies not in individual effort nor biology alone, but in the relationships between people and the ecosystems humans create, inhabit, and transform together.

Written by two physician-scientists with over seventy combined years of work in medicine, public health, and life course science, Thriving introduces a new scientific framework for one of the defining challenges of our time: how to enable all people to thrive across their lifespan. The book proposes that health, wellbeing, and resilience--what the authors call the "Triple Helix" of thriving--are not fixed traits but emergent properties of individuals interacting with one another and the ecosystems in which they live.

Drawing on examples from the United States--including an analysis of American children's declining health and a city-level transformation initiative in Pomona, California--its concepts and tools apply wherever people are asking why some communities thrive while others fall behind and languish. Moving from foundational science to practical transformation, this wide-ranging and interdisciplinary book culminates in a call for building a new social architecture grounded in the goal of thriving for all people, across the full arc of life.

About the Author

Christopher B. Forrest, MD, PhD is Professor of Pediatrics at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine, and the founder and Director of PEDSnet, a national pediatric learning health system. His career has helped establish the fields of child health services research, learning health systems science, and life course health science. He coedited the Handbook of Life Course Health Development. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine.

Neal Halfon, MD, MPH is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus at UCLA in the Geffen School of Medicine and the Fielding School of Public Health where he also serves as Founding Director of the UCLA Center for Healthier Children Families and Communities. He is a health systems scholar known for his pioneering work on life course health development, and a national leader in implementing new ways for communities to promote early child development. He coedited Child Rearing in America and the Handbook of Life Course Health Development.