Scientists are urging governments to consider loneliness a public health issue.

We know that loneliness affects many people today. For example, research has already shown that a third of the population in industrialized countries feels lonely. In fact, one in twelve people is so lonely that it leads to serious health problems. But just how widespread is loneliness on a global scale? And how does the Netherlands fare? Researchers figured it out.

Loneliness

Everyone feels lonely from time to time, just like you will be hungry or thirsty from time to time. So it’s kind of part of life. “It’s important to keep in mind that loneliness is a communal experience,” researcher Melody Ding told Scientias.nl from. “Everyone will experience the feeling of loneliness at some point in their life.” But loneliness should not be underestimated. While everyone can feel alone at times, there are degrees. “It becomes problematic when someone is chronically lonely,” Ding continues. “In that case, people ‘often’ or ‘almost always’ feel lonely.”

Distribution around the world

In a new study Ding and her colleagues focused on that group of people. Existing evidence shows that loneliness not only affects mental health and well-being, but is also linked to a range of physical health problems and premature death. This prompted the research team to map how loneliness is distributed across the globe to help decision-makers understand the magnitude and severity of the problem.

Study

The team searched research databases and found several dozen observational studies with national estimates of loneliness in 113 countries between 2000 and 2019. However, there was remarkably more data available on high-income countries (particularly Europe) compared to low- and middle-income countries.

global scale

The researchers come to a disturbing conclusion. Because loneliness appears to be a huge problem not only in industrialized countries, but worldwide. Many countries appear to be struggling with lonely inhabitants. However, there appears to be considerable geographical variation, with people living in Northern European countries consistently feeling less lonely.

Europe

In Northern Europe, only 2.9 percent of young adults, 2.7 percent of middle-aged adults and 5.2 percent of older adults are lonely. The Netherlands also does well on the loneliness scale, says Ding. “The Netherlands is on the same level as the Northern European countries,” she says. “In addition, the Netherlands consistently outperforms most of your neighboring countries, such as Belgium and Germany, in all age groups.” The most lonely are Eastern European countries, where 7.5 percent of young adults, 9.6 percent of middle-aged adults and 21.3 percent of the elderly feel lonely.

Why?

The question is why people in Northern Europe, who really do live in industrialized and individualistic countries, feel less lonely. “That is indeed the question,” says Ding. “Unfortunately, this has not yet been extensively studied. We therefore encourage future research on this issue. At the same time, there are some hypotheses. We think the explanation is multifaceted: Northern European countries usually also have few social inequalities and are among some of the happiest countries in the world. In addition, they have good health care and one of the best social security systems. Of course, all of that can contribute.”

Corona pandemic

The data examined are limited to 2019. So the question is what the effect of the corona pandemic has been on loneliness. Many measures taken by governments were aimed at protecting us against the spreading coronavirus. But isolating people not only cut them off from the coronavirus, but also from physical social contacts. And that can contribute to loneliness. At the moment, however, we do not yet know exactly what the consequences have been, says Ding. But it probably couldn’t have helped. “There is data pointing to ‘acute effects’ of the pandemic, in particular the lockdown and the one and a half meter rule,” says Ding. “But at the moment there is little evidence based on standardized methodologies and measurements. We certainly hope that continued data collection compared to our data can provide clues for the future.”

Public health issue

Overall, the researchers underline that loneliness should be considered an important and relevant problem worldwide. “The huge geographic disparities – including within Europe – again suggest that loneliness is a systemic problem, determined by a range of macro-level factors,” argues Ding. “It’s not just an individual psychological problem.” Given the negative effects of loneliness on health, the researchers say their findings reinforce the urgency to view loneliness as a threat to public health. “It really needs to be addressed as a public health issue,” Ding said. “Although an individual approach (eg therapy) is important to solve loneliness, it is not enough. Loneliness, as mentioned, is a systematic problem that is embedded in many social problems, such as homelessness, social inequalities and polarization. And systematic problems require systematic solutions, which is a common approach to public health issues.”

Change

The researchers therefore urge governments to address social and structural factors that increase the risk of loneliness, including poverty, education, transport, inequalities and housing. In addition, they also aim for preventive measures, such as raising awareness through campaigns, which solve the stigma and stereotyping surrounding loneliness. Because what the corona pandemic has shown in any case is that loneliness is not only a problem of the elderly. “Efforts to prevent and reduce loneliness require well-coordinated ongoing monitoring across life stages and broad geographic areas,” the researchers said.

In addition, Ding hopes that research into loneliness will continue. “There are still notable data gaps,” she says. “A lot of data is available about Europe, but much less is known about low- and middle-income countries. This is therefore an important equality problem that needs to be addressed. In addition, the significant differences in loneliness between countries and regions require in-depth research to unravel the causes of loneliness and devise effective ways to deal with it.”