Loneliness and Social Isolation—A Private Problem, A Public Issue

Williams, Sue E.; Braun, Bonnie

doi:10.14307/jfcs111.1.7

Cited by 33 publications

(26 citation statements)

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“…According to Statistics Sweden, approximately four percent of the adult Swedish population was estimated to be socially isolated in 2016–2017, and the loneliest ones were the elderly [ 7 ]. Loneliness is a concern for both physical and mental health providers, as research is increasingly linking social isolation to declining physical, mental, and emotional well-being [ 8 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mental Health, Greenness, and Nature Related Behaviors in the Adult Population of Stockholm County during COVID-19-Related Restrictions

Lõhmus

Stenfors

Lind

et al. 2021

IJERPH

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International data suggest that exposure to nature is beneficial for mental health and well-being. The restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic have created a setting that allows us to investigate the importance of greenness exposure on mental health during a period of increased isolation and worry. Based on 2060 responses from an online survey in Stockholm County, Sweden, we investigated: (1) whether the COVID-19 pandemic changed peoples’ lifestyle and nature-related habits, and (2) if peoples’ mental health differed depending on their exposure to greenness. Neighborhood greenness levels were quantified by using the average normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) within 50 m, 100 m, 300 m, and 500 m buffers surrounding the participant’s place of residence. We found that the number of individuals that reported that they visited natural areas “often” was significantly higher during the pandemic than before the pandemic. Higher levels of greenness surrounding one’s location of residence were in general associated with higher mental health/well-being and vitality scores, and less symptoms of depression, anxiety, and perceived and cognitive stress, after adjustments for demographic variables and walkability. In conclusion, the results from the present study provided support to the suggestion that contact with nature may be important for mental health in extreme circumstances.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mental Health, Greenness, and Nature Related Behaviors in the Adult Population of Stockholm County during COVID-19-Related Restrictions

Lõhmus

Stenfors

Lind

et al. 2021

IJERPH

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…According to Statistics Sweden, approximately four percent of the adult Swedish population were estimated to be socially isolated in 2016-2017, and the loneliest ones were the elderly (8). Loneliness is a concern for both physical and mental health providers, as research is increasingly linking social isolation to declining physical, mental, and emotional well-being (9).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mental Health, Greenness and Nature Related Behaviours in the Adult Population of Stockholm County during Covid-19-related Restrictions

Lõhmus¹,

Stenfors²,

Lind³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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International data suggests that exposure for nature is beneficial for mental health and well-being. The restrictions related to Covid-19 pandemic have created a setting that allows us to investigate the importance of greenness exposure on mental health during a period of increased isolation and worry. Based on 2060 responses from an online survey in the Stockholm County, Sweden, we investigated: 1) weather the Covid-19 pandemic changed peoples’ life-style and nature-related habits, and 2) if peoples’ mental health differed depending on their exposure to greenness. Neighbourhood greenness levels were quantified by using the average Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) within 50m, 100m, 300m, and 500m buffers surrounding the participant’s place of residence. We found that the number of individuals that reported that they visited natural areas “often” was significantly higher during the pandemic than before the pandemic. Higher levels of greenness surrounding one’s location of residence were in general associated with higher mental health/wellbeing and vitality scores, and less symptoms of depression, anxiety, and perceived and cognitive stress, after adjustments for demographic variables and walkability. In conclusion, the results from the present study provided support to the suggestion that contact with nature may be important for mental health in extreme circumstances.

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“…Loneliness has become a public health problem described as an epidemic in modern society [1]. Recent research has produced evidence of the widespread nature of the condition and of the long-term impact of loneliness on health [2]. Loneliness poses risks to emotional and social health and to physical well-being.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analyzing Trends of Loneliness Through Large-Scale Analysis of Social Media Postings: Observational Study (Preprint)

Mazuz¹,

Yom-Tov²

2019

Preprint

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BACKGROUND Loneliness has become a public health problem described as an epidemic, and it has been argued that digital behavior such as social media posting affects loneliness. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study is to expand knowledge of the determinants of loneliness by investigating online postings in a social media forum devoted to loneliness. Specifically, this study aims to analyze the temporal trends in loneliness and their associations with topics of interest, especially with those related to mental health determinants. METHODS We collected a total of 19,668 postings from 11,054 users in the loneliness forum on Reddit. We asked seven crowdsourced workers to imagine themselves as writing 1 of 236 randomly chosen posts and to answer the short-form UCLA Loneliness Scale. After showing that these postings could provide an assessment of loneliness, we built a predictive model for loneliness scores based on the posts’ text and applied it to all collected postings. We then analyzed trends in loneliness postings over time and their correlations with other topics of interest related to mental health determinants. RESULTS We found that crowdsourced workers can estimate loneliness (interclass correlation=0.19) and that predictive models are correlated with reported loneliness scores (Pearson <i>r</i>=0.38). Our results show that increases in loneliness are strongly associated with postings to a suicidality-related forum (hazard ratio 1.19) and to forums associated with other detrimental behaviors such as depression and illicit drug use. Clustering demonstrates that people who are lonely come from diverse demographics and from a variety of interests. CONCLUSIONS The results demonstrate that it is possible for unrelated individuals to assess people’s social media postings for loneliness. Moreover, our findings show the multidimensional nature of online loneliness and its correlated behaviors. Our study shows the advantages of studying a hard-to-reach population through social media and suggests new directions for future studies.

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Loneliness and Social Isolation—A Private Problem, A Public Issue

Cited by 33 publications

References 0 publications

Mental Health, Greenness, and Nature Related Behaviors in the Adult Population of Stockholm County during COVID-19-Related Restrictions

Mental Health, Greenness, and Nature Related Behaviors in the Adult Population of Stockholm County during COVID-19-Related Restrictions

Mental Health, Greenness and Nature Related Behaviours in the Adult Population of Stockholm County during Covid-19-related Restrictions

Analyzing Trends of Loneliness Through Large-Scale Analysis of Social Media Postings: Observational Study (Preprint)

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