New Insights Into Social Isolation And Loneliness

Social isolation is generally recognized as a major public health problem and is widely recognized to have detrimental consequences for people's health, including reduced mental health, increased risk of disease (e.g., hypertension, cardiovascular disease, cancer), mortality, and cognitive decline. It is widely recognized that social isolation is a major cause of death. Combined with the recent COVID-19 and other changes in social conditions, social isolation, and loneliness are becoming an increasing concern. Social isolation can occur regardless of gender or age, and the occurrence process and related factors warrant further investigation.

Social isolation and loneliness are serious yet underappreciated public health risks that affect a significant portion of the older adult population. Approximately one-quarter of community-dwelling Americans aged 65 and older are considered to be socially isolated, and a significant proportion of adults in the United States report feeling lonely. People who are 50 years of age or older are more likely to experience many of the risk factors that can cause or exacerbate social isolation or loneliness, such as living alone, the loss of family or friends, chronic illness, and sensory impairments. Over a life course, social isolation and loneliness may be episodic or chronic, depending upon an individual's circumstances and perceptions. A substantial body of evidence demonstrates that social isolation presents a major risk for premature mortality, comparable to other risk factors such as high blood pressure, smoking, or obesity. As older adults are particularly high-volume and high-frequency users of the health care system, there is an opportunity for health care professionals to identify, prevent, and mitigate the adverse health impacts of social isolation and loneliness in older adults. Social Isolation and Loneliness in Older Adults summarizes the evidence base and explores how social isolation and loneliness affect health and quality of life in adults aged 50 and older, particularly among low income, underserved, and vulnerable populations. This report makes recommendations specifically for clinical settings of health care to identify those who suffer the resultant negative health impacts of social isolation and loneliness and target interventions to improve their social conditions. Social Isolation and Loneliness in Older Adults considers clinical tools and methodologies, better education and training for the health care workforce, and dissemination and implementation that will be important for translating research into practice, especially as the evidence base for effective interventions continues to flourish.

It is one of the most perplexing paradoxes of modern life. As technology dramatically expands our ways of communicating, loneliness has become one of the leading causes of premature death in all technologically advanced nations. The medical toll is made heavier by powerful social forcesschool failure, family and communal disintegration, divorce, the loss of loved ones. And while loneliness, the lack of human companionship, the absence of face-to-face dialogue, and the disembodiment of human dialogue have all been linked to virtually every major diseasefrom cancer to Alzheimer's disease, from tuberculosis to mental illnessthe link is particularly marked in the case of heart disease, the nation's leading killer. Every year, millions die prematurely, lonely and brokenhearted, no longer able to communicate with their fellow human being. Drawing on a lifetime of his own medical research, Dr. James Lynch provides in A Cry Unheard a groundbreaking sequel to his best-selling The Broken Heart. In our modern-day world, writes Lynch, telephones talk, and radios talk, and computers talk, and televisions talk, yet no-body is there.Human speech, he asserts, has literally disappeared from its own biological homethe human heart. He outlines and explains recent medical and scientific discoveries about school failure, divorce, and living alone, and goes on to demonstrate how childhood experiences with toxic talkadults' use of language to hurt, control, and manipulate rather than to reach out and listencontribute to an unbearable type of loneliness that, in the end, breaks our hearts ten to forty years later. Hailed by many of our Nation's leading medical experts as a pioneer and visionary, as well as THE expert in affairs of the heart, Dr. Lynch predicts that communicative disease will be as major a health threat as communicable disease in the new millenium. His path-breaking researchfrom showing how greatly human touch affects the hearts of patients in intensive care units (as well as the hearts of animals in laboratory settings), to his discovery that during even the most ordinary conversations, blood pressure can rise far more than it does during maximal physical exerciseare but a few pieces of the fascinating health mosaic he assembles in this seminal work.With that rare combination of poet and scientist, he describes in moving terms the vascular see-saw of all human dialogue. Blood pressure rises when we speak to others, yet falls below baseline levels whenever we listen to others, relate to companion animals, or attend to the rest of the natural world. No wonder Lynch admonishes us that exercises to improve communicative health must be undertaken with the same seriousness and commitment as exercises on treadmills to improve physical health. Echoing time-honored Biblical truths and wisdom, he seeds this landmark book with two ominous observations: that loneliness is a lethal human poison, and that failure to act as our brother's keepers forces us into communicative exile and premature death. Ultimately, though, he concludes with optimism. Heartfelt dialogue, writes Lynch, can be, and indeed must be, the true elixir of modern life.

New Understandings of Twin Relationships takes an experience-based approach to exploring how twin attachment and estrangement are critical to understanding the push and pull of closely entwined personal relationships. Based on the research expertise of each of the authors (all identical twins in their own right), and vignettes from twins across the globe, this book describes the inner workings of the twin-world, showing how the twin-world creates experiences that are often more intense and intricately textured than those in the singleton-world. Chapters debunk myths surrounding twinship and analyze the developmental stages of the twin relationship as well as the effect of being a twin on one’s mental health from different perspectives. The authors articulate how attachment, separation anxiety, loneliness, estrangement, and the subjective experience of the twin and non-twin "other" impact behavior, thinking, and feeling. Through its careful study of the many psychological challenges that twins face throughout their lifetime, this text will help psychologists, scholars, clinicians, and twins themselves attain a deeper understanding of all interpersonal relationships.

This is a volume on loneliness and what can be done to address its pain. While most books simply describe loneliness from one author’s point of view, this volume includes a comprehensive review of the literature and employs top researchers in the field discuss their own research findings, conclusions and clinical experience. It explores the relationship between loneliness and sexuality, loneliness and optimism, and parental loneliness during pregnancy and childbirth. It also addresses loneliness throughout the life cycle in children, adolescents, the elderly and disabled, leading to a variety of coping and therapeutic modalities aimed at helping those who suffer from loneliness in its various forms.

Keeping students up to date on timely policy issues can be challenging given the range of issues, changing administrations, and the volatile political economy. Furthermore, finding readings that are student friendly, accessible, and current can be an even greater challenge. Now CQ Researcher, CQ Press and SAGE have teamed up to provide a unique selection of articles focused on social policy, specifically for courses in Social Welfare Policy and Social Policy. This collection aims to promote in-depth discussion, facilitate further research, and help students formulate their own positions on crucial issues. This volume includes eighteen up-to-date reports by CQ Researcher, an award-winning weekly policy brief that brings complicated issues down to earth. Each report chronicles and analyzes executive, legislative, and judicial activities at all levels of government. This collection was carefully crafted to cover a range of issues from the aging population, to women′s rights, the welfare system, the Trump Presidency, and much more. All in all, this reader will help your students become better versed on current policy issues and gain a deeper, more critical perspective of timely and important issues.