United States: Some older Americans claim to feel levels of loneliness and isolation as that felt during the COVID-19 pandemic; however, many continue to feel alone, a new poll shows.
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However, an examination of loneliness and isolation in a representative sample of adults aged 50 to 80 by the National Poll on Healthy Aging, published Monday in JAMA, revealed that one-third of people feel lonely, while nearly the same numbers reported feeling isolated.
The poll was conducted by a team from the University of Michigan Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation in Ann Arbor and was supported by AARP.
What more has the poll revealed?
Polls revealed that women and older adults who have serious physical health or mental health disorders are most susceptible.
According to Dr. Preeti Malani, the study’s lead author, “Loneliness and social isolation are important health issues. Just like any other medical issue, we need to think about them that way,” upi.com reported.
Furthermore, “Chronic loneliness can affect your physical health, your mental health, even longevity, and cognition — memory,” added Malani, a professor of medicine who specializes in infectious diseases at the University of Michigan.
The poll, first conducted in 2018 and again earlier this year, queries older adults across the country about how often they feel they lack companionship and are isolated.
In 2024, 33 percent of older adults reported time-use loneliness by responding sometimes or often in the past year, similar to the 2018 value of 34 percent.
Periodically, as many as 42 percent of older adults have reported that they experience exactly this kind of loneliness.
Similarly, 29 percent of elders reported they experienced some or frequent lonely feelings in 2024, slightly higher than 27 percent of the same group in 2018.
Of respondents, 56 percent stated that they had experienced this level of isolation in the first months of the pandemic, but the figures dropped in subsequent years.
Though these are mild figures, the degree of loneliness and isolation is now where it was before Covid19 breakdown.
According to Malani, who also has additional training in geriatrics, “Clinicians should ask about social isolation and loneliness the same way they might ask about diet and exercise,” upi.com reported.
“We should think of it as a serious health concern, not an inevitable thing,” she added.
Some of the other experts pointed out that the study reinforced the idea that human touch was necessary for the highest level of health.
Social relations that used to be based on education and career a people to live far from close relatives, but new ones can be made through church, reading groups, and neighborhoods.