Between loneliness and belonging: narratives of social isolation among immigrant older adults in Canada

Koehn, Sharon; Ferrer, Ilyan; Brotman, Shari

doi:10.1017/s0144686x20001348

Cited by 22 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 58 publications

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“…As a result, these norms exclude other ways of being social, which might be valued by minoritized groups, leaving the latter with the option to either assimilate or be left out (Antrobus et al., 2014). This is often the case with cultural minorities, who frequently attribute their loneliness to clashing cultural norms and misunderstandings (Byrne et al., 2015; Koehn et al., 2022; Sawir et al., 2008). Another example is that of autistic individuals, whose social needs and behaviors tend to differ from those of neurotypical individuals (Sedgewick et al., 2022).…”

Section: Changing the Narrative: Loneliness As A Social Justice Issuementioning

confidence: 99%

Changing the narrative: Loneliness as a social justice issue

Barreto,

Doyle,

Qualter

2024

Political Psychology

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Loneliness is most often understood as resulting from individual deficits that shape poor social engagement and unsatisfying interactions. As a consequence, interventions to address loneliness most often focus on fixing the lonely individual, for example, by modifying their social appraisals and skills, or encouraging them to get out more. In this paper, we characterize and contribute to changing this dominant narrative by arguing that it is both unhelpful and incomplete. We explain that this dominant narrative (1) increases loneliness and makes people feel worse about this experience, (2) does not account for important predictors of loneliness, (3) guides us to interventions that do not produce sufficiently effective or sustainable change, and (4) hinders broader understandings of the societal impact of loneliness. In this way, we argue that the dominant narrative around loneliness contributes to further setting those who feel lonely apart from the rest of society. We propose that attention to individual factors needs to be complemented by the acknowledgement that loneliness is heavily determined by social and structural conditions that render it unequally distributed in society, a situation that qualifies loneliness as a social justice issue.

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Section: Changing the Narrative: Loneliness As A Social Justice Issuementioning

confidence: 99%

Changing the narrative: Loneliness as a social justice issue

Barreto,

Doyle,

Qualter

2024

Political Psychology

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“…Loneliness describes an individual's subjective feeling that they lack companionship (Mick et al, 2018;Shankar et al, 2013), whereas social isolation typically refers to an individual's social network size and is measured as the number of social relationships Koehn et al, 2022;Shukla et al, 2020). These terms are linked, but loneliness can be experienced by an individual regardless of the breadth of their social network (Zavaleta et al, 2014).…”

Section: Social Isolation In Late Adulthoodmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Critically, longitudinal research examining life-course trajectories of the relationship between hearing loss and social isolation (cf. Brotman et al, 2020;Ferrer et al, 2017;Koehn et al, 2022) may be needed to better understand who is at risk of becoming socially isolated.…”

Section: Implications For Research and Future Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

A longitudinal framework to describe the relation between age-related hearing loss and social isolation

Motala¹,

Johnsrude²

2023

Preprint

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Many older adults have difficulty understanding speech in the presence of background sound. Experiences resulting from such comprehension difficulties include increased listening effort and fatigue, and reduced enjoyment. Social interactions may become less appealing in the context of such experiences, and age-related hearing loss is associated with an increased risk of social isolation and associated negative psychosocial health outcomes. However, the precise relationship between age-related hearing loss and social isolation is not well described. Here, we review the literature on the relationship between hearing loss and social isolation, and propose a framework with different stages along a continuous progression: within-situation disengagement from listening, social withdrawal, and social isolation. We describe the distinct characteristics of each stage and suggest potential interventions to mitigate negative impacts of hearing loss on social lives and health. We close by outlining potential implications for researchers and clinicians.

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“…Considering loneliness as a deficiency of social relationships (Koehn et al , 2022), the decrease in older people's face-to-face interactions with their friends and family during the COVID-19 pandemic is an important factor in their increased feelings of loneliness (Pandya, 2020). In addition, social isolation among older adults is a known ‘serious public health concern’ due to the associated increased risks of cardiovascular, autoimmune, neurocognitive and mental health problems (Gerst-Emerson and Jayawardhana, 2015; Armitage and Nellums, 2020: 256).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fear of COVID-19 and quality of life: the mediating role of loneliness among older Turkish adults

Altay¹,

Arisoy

2022

Ageing and Society

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The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak has affected living standards around the world, and pandemic anxiety has changed social habits. In this context, this paper investigates the relationship between fear of COVID-19 and quality of life, and assesses the mediating effect of loneliness on this relationship among a sample of older adults in Turkey. The study considers data from approximately 400 people, all of whom completed the CASP-19 Quality of Life Scale in Older People, the Loneliness Scale for the Elderly and the Fear of COVID-19 Scale. Confirmatory factor analyses were performed to confirm a one-factor structure for each instrument. Subsequently, mediation analysis, correcting for age as a continuous covariate, was performed to assess the nature of the relationship between fear and quality of life, and the extent to which that relationship is mediated by loneliness. Our study showed that there is a negative and direct relationship between loneliness and quality of life. Another important finding of our research is that fear of COVID-19 has a significant effect on loneliness. Finally, loneliness mediates the relation between fear of COVID-19 and quality of life. This finding strongly suggests that fear of COVID-19 influences quality of life via loneliness. This result is noteworthy, as we could not find any similar finding in the literature.

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Between loneliness and belonging: narratives of social isolation among immigrant older adults in Canada

Cited by 22 publications

References 58 publications

Changing the narrative: Loneliness as a social justice issue

Changing the narrative: Loneliness as a social justice issue

A longitudinal framework to describe the relation between age-related hearing loss and social isolation

Fear of COVID-19 and quality of life: the mediating role of loneliness among older Turkish adults

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