The Social Dimension: Connection and Equity

This dimension asks how the structure of a society, including its relationships, resources and distribution of power, shapes how long and how well people live.

Social connection

Evidence strength: strong.

The World Health Organization now treats social connection as a public health priority. Its 2025 Commission on Social Connection reported that about one in six people worldwide is affected by loneliness, and that loneliness is linked to an estimated 871,000 deaths a year. Strong connection, by contrast, is associated with better health across the lifespan.

For the project: connection is a design goal, not a by-product. The community starts small and personal, and the Edge is built for people to form local groups around shared interests.

Social determinants of health

Evidence strength: strong.

The WHO describes the social determinants of health as the non-medical conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age, along with the wider systems that shape daily life. Research on British civil servants (the Whitehall studies) found a social gradient: health improves step by step with social position, not just at the extremes of poverty.

For the project: these determinants are why fairness, access and shared resources matter as much as individual habits.

Inequality

Evidence strength: strong association, with a debated cause.

Societies with greater income inequality tend to have worse health and social outcomes. Whether inequality itself causes this, independent of other factors, is debated. Wilkinson and Pickett’s The Spirit Level (2009) made the case most influentially, and it has drawn substantial criticism of its country selection and its handling of other explanations. We treat reducing unfair inequality as a value we hold, informed by this evidence and not proven by it.

For the project: this connects to our view on unmerited hierarchy: power imbalances that aren’t earned or consented to carry real costs.

Sources

• WHO Commission on Social Connection (2025). Global report, and WHO news release, 30 June 2025. WHO, PDF
• WHO. Social determinants of health. WHO
• Commission on Social Determinants of Health (2008). Closing the gap in a generation. WHO. PDF
• Marmot, M. et al. (1991). Health inequalities among British civil servants: the Whitehall II study. The Lancet, 337. PubMed
• Wilkinson, R., & Pickett, K. (2009). The Spirit Level. Allen Lane. Google Books
• Pickett, K., & Wilkinson, R. (2015). Income inequality and health: a causal review. Social Science & Medicine, 128. PubMed
• Saunders, P. (2010). Beware False Prophets. Policy Exchange. (a critical view, for balance). Policy Exchange, PDF