Social Isolation and Loneliness

"I have pretty much always been introverted. I was used to being in the apartment all the time. It became almost a habit."
"If you're interacting with a group, people are expecting you. You're motivated."
"When you're by yourself, it's easy to get into that negativity spiral. It's important to get that reinforcement from people."
"Unless I motivate myself, I just go to fortress mentality. I have to come up with strategies to motivate myself and interact with the world."
Ken Roberts, 56

"The whole issue of aging alone is a huge issue for Canada for a number of reasons."
"You have densely-populated urban environments, where you can be alone in a crowd. There are suburban environments where lack of transportation can lead to social isolation."
"And then there are the distances for people in rural areas and the north."
Nora Spinks, CEO, Vanier Institute of the Family

"There is no other health condition that affects half of Americans."
"Nobody saw this issue a year and a half ago, and we're already getting legislation in Washington. This is starting to get traction."
"The market is starting to react to the ideas that loneliness is a condition that can be managed."
Andrew MacPherson, director, U.S. Coalition to End Social Isolation and Loneliness

American Psychological Association

The International Federation of Ageing report commissioned by Employment and Social Development Canada concluded the top issue facing seniors, only now emerging fully to public scrutiny, is ensuring that they be socially connected and active. "Everyone is looking for an answer about how to fix this", Mary Pat Sullivan, professor of social work and social gerontology at Nipissing University, observed.

She had travelled  to the United Kingdom where she undertook research on social isolation and loneliness for two decades, and recently returned to Canada. "I can see that interest is starting to pick up here". Last May, the first "summit on social isolation and companion animals", held in Washington, attracted public health officials, gerontologists and veterinary researchers.

Nicholas Kristof, New York Times columnist, last month urged a war on loneliness, recommending research that has demonstrated that dog owners -- not cat owners -- are less lonely, thanks to the companionship offered by dogs. That, even though a growing body of research finds no full agreement on whether pet ownership is a balm for loneliness as a certainty.

Menshealth.com posted an article in October with the argument that men form friendships differently than do women, requiring different methods to ward off loneliness. The article headline read: "Loneliness is fatal. Video games can keep men alive". Let No One Be Alone Week, encouraging people to reach out to seniors, is a special event observed in Manitoba. In Vancouver, Hey, Neighbour! was a pilot project attempting to connect apartment dwellers through shared activities; from board game nights to a workshop on emergency preparedness.

There are eleven community health centres in Ontario, part of a pilot project meant to issue "social prescriptions" for people who feel disconnected, the prescriptions featured for activities ranging from dance lessons to museum visits, to increase social connections. Clients can be referred by doctors, nurses and other health professionals identifying social disconnectedness from among their patients to "link workers" who then look for social opportunities tailored to the specifics of the individual.

This is a therapeutic notion pioneered on strategies used in the United Kingdom, whose National Health Service is engaged in social prescribing, calling it a "key component" of universal personalized care. Social prescribing is supported by 59 percent of general practitioners in the U.K. in the belief that it can aid in reducing their workload. An announcement was broadcast a year ago that the NHS was hiring another thousand link workers.



Social isolation is not the same as loneliness; the former relates to the number and frequency of links in a person's social network; an objective issue, whereas loneliness is subjective in nature; an individual reaction to the quality of those connections. One can be socially isolated and not be lonely, given people's varying personalities and perceptions and values.

There are studies linking chronic loneliness with the risk of early death, coronary heart disease, stroke, cognitive decline, and dementia. There is no doubt that feelings of loneliness makes people more susceptible to a depressive state. In addition to which, loneliness and a dearth of social interactions are seen to be predictive of suicide among older people.

Researchers at the University of Manitoba Centre on Ageing reported in 2015 that among people in the 45-plus range who were hospitalized, loneliness was associated with a higher likelihood of returning to hospital. Social isolation was associated, on the other hand, with a higher likelihood of remaining in hospital for a longer period.

Shifting demographics point to a solitary future for many people. For the first time in recorded Canadian history, the 2016 census discovered one-person households to be the most common household type in the country. Reasons for living alone are also undergoing change. About 22 percent of people living alone in 2016 were widowed, reduced from 33 percent in 1981, but 32 percent of people living alone were separated or divorced, close to tripling the 1981 rate.

Loneliness, according to former U.S. surgeon general Vivek Murthy, is a "growing health epidemic". Socially isolated seniors in the United States are estimated to be facing a 19 percent greater risk of death, and the cost in Medicare spending is $134 more monthly. Disconnectedness is seen to be more predictive of early death than effects of air pollution or being chronically sedentary, according to research by Julianne Holt-Lunstad of Brigham Young University.

A study of 5,100 Americans and their social contacts published in 2008 considered the possibility that loneliness is contagious, that when one person feels lonely, that feeling can communicate to others in a network and over time every additional day of loneliness per week led to an additional day of loneliness monthly for those in the social network.

Australia formulated the Coalition to End Loneliness; the U.S. the Coalition to End Social Isolation and Loneliness. The Dignity in Aging Act updates the 1965 Older Americans Act, placing a major focus on social isolation and empowering local organizations to evaluate solutions for social isolation, incorporating social isolation screening into health and supportive services for seniors in the U.S.

Loneliness is an issue around the world. KatarzynaBialasiewicz / Getty Images/iStockphoto