Creativity, Connection, Happiness, and Health

This timely talk by Dr. Jeremy Nobel will explore loneliness and social isolation as both a personal and societal challenge, including the accelerating impact of COVID on what was already recognized as public health crisis.  Building on the recent Surgeon General’s Advisory on Loneliness, and drawing on key frameworks presented in Dr. Nobel’s recently released book, Project UnLonely: Healing Our Crisis of Disconnection, the session will present a public health-oriented view of how best to make sense of loneliness and the societal scenarios and “territories” in which it most often arises, as well as strategies to navigate it successfully, scalably, and sustainably. A major focus of the talk will be the role of creative arts expression as a powerful tool in charting both individual and organizational paths forward to achieve better health, happiness, and well-being, accomplished by improving our sense of engagement and connection with others as well as with ourselves.

Jeremy Nobel, M.D., MPH, is a primary-care physician, public health practitioner, and award-winning poet with faculty appointments at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the Harvard Medical School. He is the founder and president of the Foundation for Art & Healing, whose signature initiative, Project UnLonely, addressing the personal and public health challenges of loneliness and social isolation, has gained national visibility.