Julia Hotz presents 'The Connection Cure'

Third Place Books is pleased to welcome journalist Julia Hotz to our Lake Forest Park store to celebrate her new book, . The Connection Cure explores the practice of "social prescribing," where, instead of defaulting to pharmaceuticals, medical personnel connect patients with community activities and resources. Julia will be introduced by Luke Wall, director of Only7Seconds, a local nonprofit that aims to end youth loneliness.

This event is free and open to the public.For important updates, RSVP is highly recommended in advance. This event will include a public signing and time for audience Q&A. Sustain our author series by purchasing a copy of the featured book!

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This event is free to attend. RSVP is recommended in advance.

In this combination of diligent science reporting, moving patient success stories, and surprising self-discovery, journalist Julia Hotz helps us discover the lasting and life-changing power of social prescribing.

Traditionally, when we get sick, health care professionals ask, “What’s the matter with you?” But around the world, teams of doctors, nurses, therapists, and social workers have started to flip the script, asking “What matters to you?” Instead of solely pharmaceutical prescriptions, they offer “social prescriptions”—referrals to community activities and resources, like photography classes, gardening groups, and volunteering gigs.

The results speak for themselves. Science shows that social prescribing is effective for treating symptoms of the modern world’s most common ailments—depression, ADHD, addiction, trauma, anxiety, chronic pain, dementia, diabetes, and loneliness. As health care’s de facto cycle of “diagnose-treat-repeat” reaches a breaking point, social prescribing has also proven to reduce patient wait times, lower hospitalization rates, save money, and reverse health worker burnout. And as a general sense of unwellness plagues more of us, social prescriptions can help us feel healthier than we’ve felt in years.

As the first book on social prescribing, The Connection Cure empowers you to find, experience, and implement this revolutionary medicine in your own community. While touring the globe to investigate the spread of social prescribing to over thirty countries, Hotz meets people personifying its revolutionary potential: an aspiring novelist whose art workshop helps her cope with trauma symptoms and rediscover her joy; a policy researcher whose swimming course helps her taper off antidepressants and feel excited to wake up in the morning; an army vet whose phone conversations help him form his only true friendship; and dozens more. The success stories she finds bring a long-known theory to life: if we can change our environment, we can change our health. By reconnecting to what matters to us, we can all start to feel better.

Julia Hotz is a solutions-focused journalist and award-winning author of THE CONNECTION CURE—the first book chronicling the science, stories, and spread of social prescribing. She helps other journalists report on evidence-backed ideas at the Solutions Journalism Network, and advises health organizations like Walk with a Doc and Social Prescribing USA. For her work on social prescribing, she has spoken at TEDx, taught in medical schools, and delivered keynote speeches at international conferences.

Founded in 1998 in Lake Forest Park, Washington, Third Place Books is dedicated to the creation of a community around books and the ideas inside them. With locations in Lake Forest Park and Seattle's Ravenna and Seward Park neighborhoods, Third Place Books is proud to serve the entire Seattle metro area. Learn more about their event series at thirdplacebooks.com/events.

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