Social Isolation

Posted 19 Aug 2025

Updated 25 Aug 2025

2 min read

Why in the News?

The recently released WHO report 'From Loneliness to Social Connection: Charting a Path To Healthier Societies' Report highlights the impact of social isolation and loneliness on health, well-being, and society.

Description: A diagram of social isolation and loneliness

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Social connection is about the many ways we relate to and interact with others and it includes family, friends, classmates, coworkers, neighbours.
Social disconnection occurs when a person doesn't have enough social contact, doesn't feel supported by the relationships, or have strained or negative relationships. Forms of social disconnection includes:
- Loneliness (discrepancy between one's desired and actual experiences of connection) and
- Social Isolation (having very few relationships or not seeing people often enough).

Key Highlights of Report

Widespread Social Disconnection: About 1 in 6 people feel lonely (2014–2023) with young people (ages 13-29) feeling the loneliest.
- Up to 1 in 3 older adults (between 1990-2022) while about 1 in 4 teenagers (between 2003-2018) are socially isolated.
Disparities: In low-income countries, about 24% of people feel lonely while in richer countries, 11% feel lonely.
Impacts of Social Disconnection: Physical Health (about 871,000 global deaths (2014–2019) linked to loneliness), Mental Health (Depression, Anxiety, Dementia etc.), Socio-Economic (Poor Academic Performance and Productivity Loss).

Policy: National Policy to encourage social connection as adopted by Eight countries including Denmark, Finland and Germany.
Research: Building global and national research capacity and launch Grand Challenges in Social Connection.
Interventions: Launch an intervention accelerator and strengthen social infrastructure (community spaces and services).
Improved Measurement: Developing a global Social Connection Index.
Public Engagement: Large public campaigns, events, group activities and social prescribing (suggestion by doctors to participate in community activities).