Successful Societies Accomplishments

This program is motivated by a concern to make societies more successful and to improve their capacities for advancing human well-being. Members engage in basic research in the social sciences in order to develop new ways of thinking about social relations. That said, many of the insights generated by this research have practical applications.

• Research conducted by CIFAR member Ann Swidler has shown that grassroots efforts to promote AIDS education and prevention are more effective than top-down efforts. Her research has compared the success of grass-roots AIDS prevention programs in Uganda to the relative failure even of well-funded and conscientiously-administered AIDS education in Botswana.

• Clyde Hertzman's research with CIFAR has been fundamental to advancing an early child development strategy for Canada. Dr. Hertzman has exposed the vital role that early childhood development plays in determining health throughout life through multiple types of biological embedding and explored the social conditions that make effective ECD programs possible.

• Program members have published a collective volume entitled Successful Societies: How Institutions and Culture Affect Health. Edited by Co-Directors Peter A. Hall and Michèle Lamont, the book offers new perspectives on the origins of inequalities in well-being (broadly defined) and how public policies might address them. Stressing the contribution that institutional practices and cultural repertoires make to population health, the book explores issues of health and human development from multiple perspectives. The group is now working on a second volume designed to explore the nature and sources of social resilience.