Thriving

A new scientific framework for enabling all people to thrive across their full life course.

Why do some people thrive while others languish? And what would it take to change that? In Thriving, Christopher Forrest and Neal Halfon argue that the answer lies not in individual effort nor biology alone, but in the relationships between people and the ecosystems humans create, inhabit, and transform together.

Written by two physician-scientists with over seventy combined years of work in medicine, public health, and life course science, Thriving introduces a new scientific framework for one of the defining challenges of our time: how to enable all people to thrive across their lifespan. The book proposes that health, wellbeing, and resilience—what the authors call the “Triple Helix” of thriving—are not fixed traits but emergent properties of individuals interacting with one another and the ecosystems in which they live.

Drawing on examples from the United States—including an analysis of American children’s declining health and a city-level transformation initiative in Pomona, California—its concepts and tools apply wherever people are asking why some communities thrive while others fall behind and languish. Moving from foundational science to practical transformation, this wide-ranging and interdisciplinary book culminates in a call for building a new social architecture grounded in the goal of thriving for all people, across the full arc of life.