Even before the pandemic, loneliness was a major public health concern in the United States. Since then, the U.S. Surgeon General has published an urgent advisory about the loneliness epidemic, proposing a national strategy to advance social connection in the country.
Over the last three years, Making Caring Common has sought to contribute to efforts to prevent and mitigate loneliness by better understanding it, increasing public awareness, and creating research-informed recommendations and resources that are rooted in our mission to promote caring. In the fall of 2020, we conducted our first national survey, which found that 36% of all Americans—including 61% of young adults and 51% of mothers with young children—felt “serious loneliness.” At a time when we were physically isolated yet encouraged to reach out to one another, many of our lonely respondents reported that no one in the past few weeks had taken more than just a few minutes to ask how they were doing. For more details and key findings, read our report, Loneliness in America: How the pandemic has deepened an epidemic of loneliness and what we can do about it.
Given the strong interest in this report, we conducted a follow-up national survey in May 2024 using YouGov's popular panel of American adults. The results shed light on numerous topics related to loneliness, including:
dimensions or types of loneliness Americans experience;
who or what they hold responsible for loneliness;
the personal and social solutions they want to see;
whether they have meaningful connections and the communities to which they do and do not feel they belong;
the extent to which they feel purpose and meaning and how purpose and meaning are related to loneliness;
the extent to which they report anxiety and depression and how these mental health challenges are related to loneliness and meaning and purpose;
whether or not Americans see themselves as spiritual, what spirituality means to them, and how spirituality is related to loneliness and meaning and purpose;
perceptions about what our political leaders might do to connect people to each other and to cultivate meaning and purpose, e.g., engaging in service.
Stay tuned for a brief report based on this latest survey. Moving forward, we are eager to continue delving into loneliness and the lack of meaning and purpose and what we might do to prevent and mitigate these challenges. In the meantime, check out our related reports and news coverage below, including Matthew Shaer’s New York Times Magazine article that cites both our latest and prior research on loneliness.
References
Bruce LD, Wu JS, Lustig SL, Russell DW, Nemecek DA. Loneliness in the United States: A 2018 National Panel Survey of Demographic, Structural, Cognitive, and Behavioral Characteristics. Am J Health Promot. 2019;33(8):1123-1133.
Cigna (2018). U.S. Loneliness Index. https://legacy.cigna.com/static/www-cigna-com/docs/about-us/newsroom/studies-and-reports/combatting-loneliness/loneliness-survey-2018-full-report.pdf
Holt-Lunstad J, Robles TF, Sbarra DA. Advancing social connection as a public health priority in the United States. Am Psychol. 2017;72(6):517-530.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (2023). Our epidemic of loneliness and isolation: The U.S. Surgeon General’s advisory on the healing effects of social connection and community. https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-social-connection-advisory.pdf
Contact
Milena Batanova
milena_batanova@gse.harvard.edu