This advocacy brief on social isolation and loneliness among older people highlights the growing public health and policy concern about these issues, which have been made more salient by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The brief summarises the scale, impact, and harms of social isolation and loneliness among older people, and outlines what can be done to reduce them. This brief also describes several policy windows that offer opportunities for addressing social isolation and loneliness among older people and proposes a three-point global strategy for tackling these issues.
Summary:
Social isolation and loneliness among older people are widespread. For instance, 20–34% of older people in China, Europe, Latin America, and the United States of America are lonely.
Social isolation and loneliness are harmful. They shorten older people’s lives, and damage their mental and physical health and quality of life.
But they can be reduced:
Through face-to-face or digital interventions such as cognitive behaviour therapy, social skills training and befriending;
By improving infrastructure (e.g. transport, digital inclusion, built environment) and promoting age-friendly communities;
Through laws and policies to address, for instance, ageism, inequality and the digital divide.
A strategy for reducing social isolation and loneliness among older people should aim to:
Implement and scale-up effective interventions to reduce social isolation and loneliness;
Improve research and strengthen the evidence for what works; and
Create a global coalition to increase the political priority of social isolation and loneliness among older people.
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