Many people assume good friends are lovely for the mood but separate from physical health. A large international survey suggests the two may be connected, although it cannot show that friendship itself changes health.
The work was led by Dr Veli Durmuş of Kütahya Health Sciences University in Türkiye and was published in the Journal of Mental Health in 2026. It is a secondary analysis, which means the author used survey information that had already been collected by the Global Flourishing Study rather than recruiting people for a new project.
The analysis drew on the first phase of that study: 204,907 adults aged 18 and over living in 22 countries, including Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, Brazil, Germany, India, Japan, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa. Everything was self-reported. People rated how content they were with their friendships and how satisfied they were with their relationships, and some also rated how good their relationships with their mother and father were in childhood.
The health outcomes were also self-rated. People described their mental health and their physical health on a scale from poor to excellent. The analysis took other factors into account, including income and education.
People who were more content with their friendships, and more satisfied with their relationships, tended to rate their mental and physical health more highly. A similar but weaker pattern appeared for people who described very good relationships with their parents when they were children.
Other patterns appeared alongside this. Mental health ratings were lower among people in their mid-thirties to late forties than among those aged 18 to 34, and higher among people aged 65 and over. Being married, having enough money and identifying with a religion were each linked with higher health ratings. Contentment with friendships and relationships was highest in Indonesia and lowest in Japan among the countries studied.
The press release does not report effect sizes, confidence intervals or p-values, so it is not possible to say from that source how large the differences were. The release does not say which results were weaker or not statistically significant, so readers should not assume every outcome moved in the same direction.
The headline question asks whether friendship quality matters for health. The most accurate answer from this work is that better friendship quality was linked with better self-rated health, in a very large and varied sample.
The author states that the study cannot establish cause and effect. Someone who feels well may find it easier to enjoy and keep friendships, and someone who is unwell may feel less content with them. The data cannot separate those possibilities.
All of the information came from what people reported about themselves at one point in time. Self-rated health is a useful and widely used measure, but it reflects how a person sees their own health, not a medical assessment. People in different countries and cultures may also answer questions about friendship and health in different ways.
Childhood relationships are only part of the story, as the author notes. Later relationships can strengthen or change the influence of early ones, so a difficult childhood does not fix a person's future friendships or health.
There are several reasons the findings may not describe your own situation. Averages across 22 countries can hide wide differences between individuals. A person with a small circle of friends they value may be just as content as someone with many acquaintances. And people living with serious illness, disability, caring duties or isolation may face barriers to friendship that a survey of this kind cannot reflect.
This article is general information about one study. It is not medical or psychological advice and does not suggest that friendship can replace health care. If you are worried about your physical or mental health, a qualified health professional can look at your individual circumstances. If you are in distress, Lifeline on 13 11 14 is available in Australia, and 000 in an emergency.
Source: Fulfilling friendships boost health and wellbeing, further suggests a new global study (Taylor & Francis press release on a Journal of Mental Health paper by V. Durmuş) DOI: 10.1080/09638237.2026.2695973
Illustration of friendship and social wellbeing across adulthood. AI-generated editorial illustration. This article summarises published research in our own words and is general information, not personal health advice.
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