Everyone is lonely sometimes. It is a feeling that the absolute majority of people will have to endure at some point in their lifetime. However, scientists from the University of Sydney would like to encourage governments to take the widespread loneliness more seriously. Their new research revealed that loneliness reached a problematic level and should be regarded as a public health issue.
Loneliness has been linked to many health conditions and even an early death. Image credit: CoolRockC via Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
COVID-19 is a serious global pandemic. Data is publicly available and most of us know someone who had this viral disease. In fact, many readers of this article had it themselves. In this context loneliness seems a bit out of place – how can it be a public health problem? However, it is likely that COVID-19 restrictions worsened this situation, even though data gathered between 2000 and 2019 across 113 countries and territories wasn’t particularly good either.
In total, 212 estimates for 106 countries from 24 studies were included in the new meta-analysis, conducted by the University of Sydney. High-income countries were more represented in this study and different papers focused on different age groups. However, the data is reliable enough to notice some patterns about the public health condition regarding the levels of loneliness.
Senior author of the study Melody Ding said: “It’s a commonly held belief that around one in 12 people experience loneliness at a level that can lead to serious health problems, however, the source of such data are unclear and researchers have never established how widespread loneliness is on a global scale. That is why we were interested in conducting the review”.
Scientists found that the level of loneliness in adolescents ranged from 9.2 % in South-East Asia to 14.4 % in the Eastern Mediterranean region. Those are extremely high levels of loneliness and can have a significant impact on public mental health.
Meanwhile the loneliest adults in Europe (this study included only European adults) were in eastern countries – the level of loneliness here ranged from 7.5 % for young adults or 9.6 % for middle aged adults and 21.3 % for older ones. It is important to stress that this data was gathered before lockdowns and other COVID-19 restrictions. Scientists urge governments to tackle loneliness as a public health issue.
Loneliness has been linked to a number of different health conditions – anxiety, depression, cognitive decline, Alzheimer’s, high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity, etc. It is not just a feeling – it is a condition, which is a significant obstacle to having good health. Social isolation should be avoided and modern life conditions should help achieve that. And yet so many people are lonely right now.
Source: University of Sydney