Lifestyle
Connected Communities: Reducing the Impact of Isolation in Rural Areas
Last Updated on May 11, 2025 by Daily News Staff
(Family Features) Throughout history, humans’ ability to rely on one another has been crucial to survival. Despite modern developments that help individuals live with minimal human engagement, the human need to connect remains.
However, in many parts of America, a trend toward isolation is emerging. Over the past two decades, people are spending more time alone and less time engaging with others in person, according to data from the Office of the U.S. Surgeon General. One segment of Americans at particular risk of social isolation, loneliness and their negative impacts are select populations who live in rural areas.
“There is an urgent need to take action and improve mental health in rural America,” said Jeff Winton, dairy farmer and founder and chairman of Rural Minds, a nonprofit mental health advocacy organization that partnered with Pfizer to raise awareness about the physical and mental risks of social isolation. “Challenges to mental health can be inherent in a rural lifestyle, including a belief in self-reliance as a virtue, fear of judgment and difficulty getting an appointment with a limited number of mental health professionals, among others.”
Many Americans are increasingly spending more time alone according to the American Time Use Survey. They are increasingly more likely to take meetings, shop, eat and enjoy entertainment at home, making it easier for them to stay within their own four walls and avoid social interactions.
Authentic human connection is a basic but often unacknowledged necessity for health, “as essential to survival as food, water and shelter,” according to the U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory on the Health Effects of Social Connection and Community.
Understanding Social Isolation
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about one-third of U.S. adults reported feeling lonely and about one-fourth said they don’t have social and emotional support (the basis of social isolation).
The concepts of social isolation and loneliness can go hand-in-hand, but the two are actually quite different.
Social isolation is defined by an absence of relationships or contact with others. Someone experiencing loneliness may or may not have social connections, but lacks feelings of closeness, support or belonging. Despite the distinction, both can have a negative impact on a person’s mental and even physical health.
Several factors can influence a person’s risk for social isolation and loneliness.
“Social connection is a dynamic that changes over time,” said Nikki Shaffer, senior director, occupational health and wellness, Pfizer. “Transient feelings of loneliness or solitude may be beneficial because they can serve as motivation to reconnect. However, chronic loneliness (even if someone is not isolated) and isolation (even if someone is not lonely) can represent significant health concerns.”
Isolation in Rural America
Compared to people who live in urban areas, many rural Americans experience higher rates of depression and suicide but are less likely to access mental health care services, according to the “Health Disparities in Rural America: Current Challenges and Future Solutions” study published in “Clinical Advisor.” What’s more, CDC data shows suicide rates among people living in rural areas can be 64-68% higher than those in large urban areas.
Rural areas have 20% fewer primary care providers compared to urban areas, according to a report in JAMA, and the Health Resources and Services Administration reports more than 25 million rural Americans, more than half of rural residents, live in mental health professional shortage areas.
Among rural counties, 65% lack a psychiatrist. Nearly 30% of rural Americans don’t have internet access in their homes, which complicates the option for telehealth. These figures from Rural Minds exemplify the challenges facing rural America.
“Some people in rural communities still don’t understand or accept that mental illness is a disease,” said Winton, who grew up on a rural farm. “Rather, a mental illness can often be viewed as a personal weakness or character flaw. A lot of the stigma around mental illness results in unwarranted shame, which adds to the burden for someone already suffering from mental illness.”
Health Impacts of Social Isolation
Loneliness is far more than just a bad feeling; it harms both individual and societal health. In fact, loneliness and social isolation can increase the risk for premature death by 26% and 29%, respectively.
Lacking social connection can increase the risk for premature death as much as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day or drinking six alcoholic drinks daily.
In addition, poor or insufficient social connection is associated with increased risk of disease, including a 29% increased risk of heart disease and a 32% increased risk of stroke.
Social isolation is also associated with increased risk for anxiety, depression and dementia. Additionally, a lack of social connection may increase susceptibility to viruses and respiratory illness.
Learn more about the impact of social isolation, especially on residents of rural areas, and the steps you can take to reduce isolation and loneliness by visiting ruralminds.org.
Boost Your Social Connections
Take a proactive approach to combatting social isolation and loneliness with these everyday actions that can promote stronger social ties.
- Invest time in nurturing your relationships through consistent, frequent and high-quality engagement with others. Take time each day to reach out to a friend or family member.
- Minimize distractions during conversation to increase the quality of the time you spend with others. For instance, don’t check your phone during meals with friends, important conversations and family time.
- Seek out opportunities to serve and support others, either by helping your family, co-workers, friends or people in your community or by participating in community service.
- Be responsive, supportive and practice gratitude. As you practice these behaviors, others are more likely to reciprocate, strengthening social bonds, improving relationship satisfaction and building social capital.
- Participate in social and community groups such as religious, hobby, fitness, professional and community service organizations to help foster a sense of belonging, meaning and purpose.
- Seek help during times of struggle with loneliness or isolation by reaching out to a family member, friend, counselor, health care provider or the 988 crisis line.
Photos courtesy of Shutterstock
SOURCE:
Rural Minds and Pfizer
cruise
Top Trends for Swoon-Worthy Cruise Vacations
Swoon-Worthy Cruise Vacations: From immersive dining to wellness at sea and elevated entertainment, cruise vacations are becoming some of the most experience-rich trips travelers can take. To take advantage of the evolution of the industry when planning your next vacation at sea, consider these emerging trends.
Top Trends for Swoon-Worthy Cruise Vacations
(Feature Impact) From immersive dining to wellness at sea and elevated entertainment, cruise vacations are becoming some of the most experience-rich trips travelers can take.
“Our industry has long been known for innovation, but what’s most compelling now is how that scale is being leveraged to invest in more immersive entertainment, wellness experiences and purpose-driven exploration at destinations around the world,” said Chiara Giorgi, global event and brand director for Seatrade Cruise Global, the largest and longest-running annual event of its kind serving every sector of the international cruise industry, including cruise lines, suppliers, travel agents and partners.
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To take advantage of the evolution of the industry when planning your next vacation at sea, consider these emerging trends identified at the conference.
The Rise of Floating Wellness Retreats
Once upon a time, wellness meant spas, saunas and massages. Wellness in 2026 is much more luxurious and is deeply embedded into the cruise experience. For example, Cunard’s “Wellness at Sea” voyages integrate expert-led fitness, nutrition, mindfulness and recovery programming, turning wellness into a structured, goal-driven experience and elevating wellness as a core pillar of the onboard experience. Additional cruise lines, including Virgin Voyages and Celebrity Cruises, are also helping raise the bar on floating wellness. Think thermal suites, meditation spaces and sleep-focused programming, along with wellness excursions and destination-inspired spa rituals that extend the experience to the shore.
Dining Becomes the Experience
Dining has long been a key component of many cruises, but now, food and drink are evolving from a cruise staple to a central form of entertainment and cultural discovery. Cruise lines are investing in immersive dining environments, destination-inspired menus and beverage programs that connect guests more directly with the places they visit.
From location-specific cuisine to interactive dining concepts and destination-driven cocktail programs, F&B@Sea, Seatrade Cruise Global’s companion show, found culinary experiences are increasingly designed to be memorable punctuation points of the journey itself. Across the industry, cruise lines are investing heavily in culinary programs that blur the line between dining and entertainment. Tapping into the supper club trend, Royal Caribbean introduced the Empire Supper Club to turn dinner into a night out at sea, combining multi-course menus, craft cocktails and live music for a full evening experience.
Exploring Expeditions with Purpose
Expedition travel is having more than a moment. It continues to grow as travelers seek deeper engagement with the natural world. Leading the shift toward purpose-driven explorations, operators such as National Geographic-Lindblad Expeditions, long recognized for pioneering modern expedition travel, helped define this category through a model rooted in education, conservation and hands-on exploration. Built on the belief that exploring the world can inspire people to care more deeply for it, expert-led expeditions, such as kayaking among glaciers, participating in citizen science programs studying seabirds and learning directly from naturalists and scientists, place a strong emphasis on stewardship and real-world learning.
Ships as Cultural Hubs
Entertainment at sea is expanding beyond traditional stage shows to include immersive productions, music residencies and partnerships with leading performing arts brands. For example, Holland America Line joined forces with The Verdon Fosse Legacy to debut “Fosse and Verdon, The Duet That Changed Broadway,” a live musical and multimedia tribute celebrating the revolutionary work of Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon by bringing it to an international stage at sea for the first time.
As cruises continue to expand their global footprint, the Seatrade Cruise Global event positions itself not simply as a trade gathering, but as the central forum where trends are explored and defined. To learn more, visit seatradecruiseevents.com.
Photos courtesy of Shutterstock
SOURCE:
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Festivals
Presqu’ile Winery Partners With LAND to Bring Contemporary Art to Santa Maria Valley
Presqu’ile Winery and LAND are partnering to bring free, site-responsive contemporary art to the Santa Maria Valley estate in Santa Barbara Wine Country.
Santa Barbara Wine Country is about to get a fresh reason to linger a little longer. Presqu’ile Winery has announced a new collaboration with Los Angeles Nomadic Division (LAND), the nationally recognized nonprofit known for taking contemporary art out of traditional museums and galleries and placing it directly into the environments that shape it. The result: curated, site-responsive works—some created specifically for the property—installed across Presqu’ile’s Santa Maria Valley estate.
A winery becomes an open-air gallery—at no cost
Under the partnership, Presqu’ile will serve as a host site for LAND programming, opening its estate to the public for free. Visitors can expect contemporary art integrated into the vineyard setting, with select installations shaped by the landscape itself. The goal is simple and ambitious at the same time: expand no-cost access to contemporary art along California’s Central Coast while creating a cultural experience that feels inseparable from the place it inhabits.
LAND’s approach is rooted in the belief that art should be experienced where people actually live, work, and gather. Rather than building exhibitions around white walls and controlled lighting, LAND supports projects driven by place—work that engages the environment, the community, and the lived experience of the artists creating it.
“Nourishing reciprocity” between art, landscape, and community
Laura Hyatt, Director of LAND, emphasized how the Central Coast setting opens new creative possibilities for artists.
Hyatt noted that collaborating with Presqu’ile gives artists the opportunity to engage with the region’s natural beauty and unique ecology—placing artworks in what she described as “nourishing reciprocity” with the landscape and the visitors moving through it. She also highlighted the long-term potential of the partnership, which allows for deeper exploration over time, expands LAND’s geographic reach, and strengthens connections between Southern and Central California.
For Hyatt, the collaboration is personal as well: her family has roots in the area going back five generations, adding another layer of community connection to the work LAND hopes to cultivate.
A shared mindset: tradition, experimentation, and a sense of place
Presqu’ile framed the partnership as a natural extension of what the winery already does—balancing tradition with experimentation. In the same way winemaking can honor time-tested methods while still pushing toward new expressions, contemporary art can offer new ways of seeing familiar processes and landscapes.
Matt Murphy, co-founder of Presqu’ile Winery, said the family’s appreciation for the visual arts made the collaboration an easy “yes.” He pointed to the opportunity to create “fun, compelling and unexpected” ways for the community to engage with both the installations and the estate itself—and to experience Presqu’ile through each artist’s creative lens.
What happens next
In the near term, LAND will install artworks developed through its programming on the Presqu’ile property, with public access remaining free. The collaboration is designed with community benefit at its center, positioning the estate as a cultural and agricultural destination—not just a tasting room.
Looking ahead, Presqu’ile has submitted plans for approval to develop expanded spaces intended to support free public art, cultural programming, and community gathering. If approved, those improvements would signal a long-term commitment to integrating arts and culture into the estate experience and welcoming future partners whose work aligns with Presqu’ile’s values of openness, creativity, and place-based expression.
Additional details—including participating artists and installation timelines—will be announced as the collaboration progresses.
About the partners
Presqu’ile Winery
Presqu’ile (pronounced press-keel) is a family-owned estate winery in Santa Maria Valley on California’s Central Coast. Founded in 2007, the winery produces cool-climate wines from its sustainably farmed estate vineyard and from a select group of growers across Santa Barbara County. The name—French Creole for “almost an island”—reflects the Murphy family’s Gulf Coast heritage and the winery’s deep emphasis on place.
Los Angeles Nomadic Division (LAND)
Founded in 2009, LAND is a nonprofit arts organization dedicated to connecting people and places through site-responsive public art and programs. Over 15 years, LAND has presented more than 500 artists across 300+ programs and exhibitions, ranging from large-scale sculptural commissions to billboards, roadside screenings, workshops, and city-wide video presentations—reaching millions of people.
Why it matters
This collaboration isn’t just about adding art to a winery—it’s about rethinking where art belongs, who gets to access it, and how landscape can become part of the creative process. For the Central Coast, Presqu’ile and LAND are setting the stage for a new kind of cultural destination: one where a walk through the vines can also be a walk through contemporary ideas, made visible in the open air.
Source: Presqu’ile Winery
Organization: Los Angeles Nomadic Division (LAND)
- Presqu’ile media contact: diana@solterrastrategies.com
- LAND media contact: kyle@hellothirdeye.com
Our Lifestyle section on STM Daily News is a hub of inspiration and practical information, offering a range of articles that touch on various aspects of daily life. From tips on family finances to guides for maintaining health and wellness, we strive to empower our readers with knowledge and resources to enhance their lifestyles. Whether you’re seeking outdoor activity ideas, fashion trends, or travel recommendations, our lifestyle section has got you covered. Visit us today at https://stmdailynews.com/category/lifestyle/ and embark on a journey of discovery and self-improvement.
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Lifestyle
Women are at a higher risk of dying from heart disease − in part because doctors don’t take major sex and gender differences into account
Heart disease impacts women differently than men due to genetic and gender biases in healthcare. Awareness and improved treatment approaches are essential for better outcomes.
Last Updated on April 20, 2026 by Daily News Staff
Amy Huebschmann, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and Judith Regensteiner, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus
A simple difference in the genetic code – two X chromosomes versus one X chromosome and one Y chromosome – can lead to major differences in heart disease. It turns out that these genetic differences influence more than just sex organs and sex assigned at birth – they fundamentally alter the way cardiovascular disease develops and presents.
While sex influences the mechanisms behind how cardiovascular disease develops, gender plays a role in how healthcare providers recognize and manage it. Sex refers to biological characteristics such as genetics, hormones, anatomy and physiology, while gender refers to social, psychological, and cultural constructs. Women are more likely to die after a first heart attack or stroke than men. Women are also more likely to have additional or different heart attack symptoms that go beyond chest pain, such as nausea, jaw pain, dizziness and fatigue. It is often difficult to fully disentangle the influences of sex on cardiovascular disease outcomes versus the influences of gender.
While women who haven’t entered menopause have a lower risk of cardiovascular disease than men, their cardiovascular risk accelerates dramatically after menopause. In addition, if a woman has Type 2 diabetes, her risk of heart attack accelerates to be equivalent to that of men, even if the woman with diabetes has not yet gone through menopause. Further data is needed to better understand differences in cardiovascular disease risk among nonbinary and transgender patients.
Despite these differences, one key thing is the same: Heart attack, stroke and other forms of cardiovascular disease are the leading cause of death for all people, regardless of sex or gender.
We are researchers who study women’s health and the way cardiovascular disease develops and presents differently in women and men. Our work has identified a crucial need to update medical guidelines with more sex-specific approaches to diagnosis and treatment in order to improve health outcomes for all.
Gender differences in heart disease
The reasons behind sex and gender differences in cardiovascular disease are not completely known. Nor are the distinct biological effects of sex, such as hormonal and genetic factors, versus gender, such as social, cultural and psychological factors, clearly differentiated.
What researchers do know is that the accumulated evidence of what good heart care should look like for women compared with men has as many holes in it as Swiss cheese. Medical evidence for treating cardiovascular disease often comes from trials that excluded women, since women for the most part weren’t included in scientific research until the NIH Revitalization Act of 1993. For example, current guidelines to treat cardiovascular risk factors such as high blood pressure are based primarily on data from men. This is despite evidence that differences in the way that cardiovascular disease develops leads women to experience cardiovascular disease differently.
In addition to sex differences, implicit gender biases among providers and gendered social norms among patients lead clinicians to underestimate the risk of cardiac events in women compared with men. These biases play a role in why women are more likely than men to die from cardiac events. For example, for patients with symptoms that are borderline for cardiovascular disease, clinicians tend to be more aggressive in ordering artery imaging for men than for women. One study linked this tendency to order less aggressive tests for women partly to a gender bias that men are more open than women to taking risks.
In a study of about 3,000 patients with a recent heart attack, women were less likely than men to think that their heart attack symptoms were due to a heart condition. Additionally, most women do not know that cardiovascular disease is the No. 1 cause of death among women. Overall, women’s misperceptions of their own risk may hold them back from getting a doctor to check out possible symptoms of a heart attack or stroke.
These issues are further exacerbated for women of color. Lack of access to health care and additional challenges drive health disparities among underrepresented racial and ethnic minority populations.
Sex difference in heart disease
Cardiovascular disease physically looks different for women and men, specifically in the plaque buildup on artery walls that contributes to illness.
Women have fewer cholesterol crystals and fewer calcium deposits in their artery plaque than men do. Physiological differences in the smallest blood vessels feeding the heart also play a role in cardiovascular outcomes.
Women are more likely than men to have cardiovascular disease that presents as multiple narrowed arteries that are not fully “clogged,” resulting in chest pain because blood flow can’t ratchet up enough to meet higher oxygen demands with exercise, much like a low-flow showerhead. When chest pain presents in this way, doctors call this condition ischemia and no obstructive coronary arteries. In comparison, men are more likely to have a “clogged” artery in a concentrated area that can be opened up with a stent or with cardiac bypass surgery. Options for multiple narrowed arteries have lagged behind treatment options for typical “clogged” arteries, which puts women at a disadvantage.
In addition, in the early stages of a heart attack, the levels of blood markers that indicate damage to the heart are lower in women than in men. This can lead to more missed diagnoses of coronary artery disease in women compared with men.
The reasons for these differences are not fully clear. Some potential factors include differences in artery plaque composition that make men’s plaque more likely to rupture or burst and women’s plaque more likely to erode. Women also have lower heart mass and smaller arteries than men even after taking body size into consideration.
Reducing sex disparities
Too often, women with symptoms of cardiovascular disease are sent away from doctor’s offices because of gender biases that “women don’t get heart disease.”
Considering how symptoms of cardiovascular disease vary by sex and gender could help doctors better care for all patients.
One way that the rubber is meeting the road is with regard to better approaches to diagnosing heart attacks for women and men. Specifically, when diagnosing heart attacks, using sex-specific cutoffs for blood tests that measure heart damage – called high-sensitivity troponin tests – can improve their accuracy, decreasing missed diagnoses, or false negatives, in women while also decreasing overdiagnoses, or false positives, in men.
Our research laboratory’s leaders, collaborators and other internationally recognized research colleagues – some of whom partner with our Ludeman Family Center for Women’s Health Research on the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus – will continue this important work to close this gap between the sexes in health care. Research in this field is critical to shine a light on ways clinicians can better address sex-specific symptoms and to bring forward more tailored treatments.
The Biden administration’s recent executive order to advance women’s health research is paving the way for research to go beyond just understanding what causes sex differences in cardiovascular disease. Developing and testing right-sized approaches to care for each patient can help achieve better health for all.
Amy Huebschmann, Professor of Medicine, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and Judith Regensteiner, Professor of Medicine, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Our Lifestyle section on STM Daily News is a hub of inspiration and practical information, offering a range of articles that touch on various aspects of daily life. From tips on family finances to guides for maintaining health and wellness, we strive to empower our readers with knowledge and resources to enhance their lifestyles. Whether you’re seeking outdoor activity ideas, fashion trends, or travel recommendations, our lifestyle section has got you covered. Visit us today at https://stmdailynews.com/category/lifestyle/ and embark on a journey of discovery and self-improvement.
