This chapter considers the contemporary social and military context of the composition of Coriolanus including civil unrest, governance, education, the influence of the classical world, and later conjecture that Shakespeare himself was a soldier. In considering the performance of the play and its afterlives, attention is paid to stage directions, sound, character, and the subsequent adaptation and appropriation of Coriolanus and his mother in other media – art, poetry, film – that focus on the military, civil, personal, and political conflicts at the heart of the play.

Groups are increasingly used to deliver behavior change interventions, but such interventions are seldom based on theory and research on social group processes. A consequence of this is that existing group interventions are often heterogenous and difficult to evaluate. The social identity approach addresses important questions relevant to the design and delivery of group interventions for supporting behavior change. Drawing on this approach, the social identity model of behavior change explains how group processes can be harnessed in behavior change interventions. The model prioritizes the establishment of shared social identity among intervention group members and outlines how, through six core group resources, social identification can shape delivery of intervention content to achieve behavior change. Evidence for the key resources specified in the model is presented, and a step-by-step guide provided, to support the operationalization of the model’s principles in practice.

The social life of female chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) differs between subspecies, with females in East African field sites often described as avoiding association to avoid competition, while females in Taï have been shown to be more gregarious, spending most of their time in close contact with each other, probably to avoid predation. This close association leads to increased levels of direct competition for resources, possibly increasing the benefit of having a higher dominance rank and challenging dominant group members. Female chimpanzees in Gombe have been shown to queue for rank rather than challenge others. Here, we show that female dyads in Taï do change their dominance rank at times, with at least six clear rank changes recorded in the Taï North and South communities. We discuss life events that could facilitate rank challenges. The increased flexibility in the female dominance hierarchy potentially adds a level of complexity not seen in East African chimpanzees.

This poem, by the Irish poet and Nobel Laureate, Seamus Heaney, is as applicable to sustaining healthy communities as it is to sustaining marital harmony, which is the purpose for which it was originally written. As the scaffolding provided the foundational structure from which Heaney and his wife built the walls of their marriage, so too we can develop communities through our own collective efforts, drawing on support from health and social care practitioners of various persuasions where and when required. Once it is established, we can gain confidence from the fact that we can use what we have built together to help our communities to endure and thrive when they, too, are threatened by adversity.

Public health is defined by the UK’s Faculty of Public Health as ‘The science and art of promoting and protecting health and well being, preventing ill health and prolonging life through the organised efforts of society’.

This definition locates the causes of ill health and the remedies in the realms of personal and societal agency, and not only in the remit of health practitioners. Although the latter have a role as members of society to make prevention a reality for themselves, families and communities, they play a special part in preventing further ill health for people who suffer mental illness and are seeking help for it.

Other chapters in this book attend to the relational and social fabric that enables people to flourish; it is made of good and trusting relationships, and material conditions that permit thought about purpose and meaning beyond survival.

This chapter pulls together key matters in this book. Its title is a quote from a line given to one of the characters in Hamlet by Shakespeare. That sentence perfectly outlines the intention of Section 5 of this book and the function of this final chapter in which I endeavour to align theory, research and the practical impacts of the topics covered by this book with the circumstances in which we find health services as we near the close of the second decade of the twenty-first century. But, first, I return to Chapter 1, to recapture some of those circumstances. Then, I look at the matters on which I think we should focus in order to sustain healthcare services and incorporate the social agenda identified in this book.

Social relationships affect health. Of that we are certain. People who are more strongly connected live longer (e.g. Holt-Lunstad et al., 2010), are in better health (e.g. Boden-Albala et al., 2005) and experience better wellbeing (e.g. Helliwell & Putnam, 2004). None of us is immune to these effects although, clearly, poverty, inequality and age, among other factors, contribute to, and exacerbate the consequences of, social disconnection.

What is more remarkable, in the context of the evidence-base showing the profound impact of these effects, is the relatively limited investment in efforts to build and preserve the social capital of vulnerable communities, on health grounds. Recognising the potential benefits that social resources bring and the mechanisms through which they can emerge is important, but not enough. What is needed is a coherent approach to embed these resources in communities to ensure that the products of social connectedness can be sustained in the longer term.

This book’s roots are in an impactful seminar series hosted by the Royal College of Psychiatrists in which practitioners and scientists from a wide array of disciplines came together in 2014 to explore the social influences on our health and recovery from ill health. This volume echoes the evocative conversations in that College and is intended to rehearse research of potentially great impact. It presents practitioners, researchers, policymakers and students of a wide array of disciplines and roles with the material to support them in better harnessing what we now know about the impact of social factors on health. Thereby, the editors hope to influence how practitioners and the responsible authorities work together with members of the public and communities to design and deliver services. Our aspiration is to contribute to creating better-targeted approaches to promoting health and mental health and more effective and integrated interventions for people who have health problems or disorders.