WHO has made loneliness a health priority — here's how it plans to tackle lack of social connections

The World Health Organization (WHO) has made loneliness a global health priority and launched a new Commission on Social Connection. The aim of the commission, which consists of 11 leading policy makers, thought leaders and advocates from across the globe, will be to address loneliness as a pressing health threat, promote social connections as a priority and accelerate the scaling up of solutions in countries of all incomes.

According to WHO, social isolation — having an insufficient number of social connections — and loneliness, the social pain of not feeling connected, are widely impacting the health and wellbeing of people across age groups around the globe.

Social isolation affects one in four older people while 5% to 15% of adolescents experiencing loneliness, the world health agency pointed out and noted that these figures are likely to be underestimations.

According to WHO, people without strong social connections are at a higher risk of stroke, anxiety, dementia, depression amongst others. It also leads to an equal or even greater risk of early death as other risk factors such as smoking, excessive drinking, obesity and more.

Being socially isolated has been linked to depression, anxiety and can increase the risk of cardiac diseases by 30%, WHO said.

The Commission formed by WHO, which will be co-chaired by US Surgeon General Dr Vivek Murthy, will hold its first leadership level meeting from December 2 to December 8 this year. The agenda of the panel has special significance at this time as per the WHO, given how the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in undermining of social connections.

For the next three years, the commission will analyse how social connections help in improving health for people of all ages and will also outline solutions to build social connections at scale