The young, not the elderly, are loneliest

Isolation among those 18 to 22 triggers alarm

Young people are far more likely than senior citizens to report being lonely and in poor health, according to a survey of 20,000 Americans released Tuesday.

The overall national loneliness score was at 44 on a 20-to-80 scale, showing a prevalence of social isolation among those ages 18 to 22.

The younger people, part of Generation Z, had loneliness scores of about 48 compared with nearly 39 for those 72 and older.

The study was sponsored by insurer Cigna, which is concerned about loneliness not just as a societal problem but also a health matter: It can literally make people sick.

Loneliness has the same effect on mortality as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, which makes it even more dangerous than obesity, according to Cigna. Although the findings don’t draw direct links to increased rates of suicide among teens or the opioid epidemic, Cigna CEO David Cordani says it’s clear addressing loneliness will help solve other problems.

“If their sense of health and well-being is more positive, then less destructive activities transpire,” Cordani says.

The market research firm Ipsos asked questions online from Feb. 21 to March 6 to more than 20,000 people 18 and older in the USA. The questions were based on UCLA’s Loneliness Scale and used to create the Cigna Loneliness Index.

The survey found that young people with the highest rates of social media use reported feelings of loneliness that were very similar to the feelings of peo-

Loneliness has the same effect on mortality as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, according to Cigna.

ple who barely use social media.

Though some people may compensate by finding connections online, that can provide a false sense of relief, says Jagdish Khubchandani, a health science professor at Ball State University in Muncie, Ind. This type of socialization often leads people to spend time alone on computers in their homes, gaining weight and shunning face-to-face interaction, he said. “I have students who tell me they have 500 ‘friends,’ but when they’re in need, there’s no one,” Khubchandani says.

Disconnected youth

Isolation is of such societal concern that young people 16 to 24 who are neither employed nor in school are tracked and classified as “disconnected youth.” Physician Vivek Murthy, a former surgeon general, made emotional well-being and loneliness a focus while he was in office and is writing a book and setting up an institute focused on the issue.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation worked with the non-profit project Measure of America to publicize the problem because disconnection in young people is such a predictor of poor health and early death.

When people are disconnected at 16 to 18, it’s “not a spontaneously occurring event,” says Sarah Burd-Sharps, Measure of America’s co-director. “It’s an accumulation of all the events in teens’ lifetimes, experiences in your family, any trauma you faced.”

There’s considerable research on the 10 traumatic “adverse childhood experiences” (ACEs) that contribute to the poor mental and physical health associated with “disconnected youth” — and what should be done to address them.

More than half of these 18- to 24year-old members of Gen Z identified with 10 of the 11 feelings associated with loneliness.

The index stipulates that the higher the score, the lonelier people are.

Together but alone

When police arrived at a home in Hamden, Conn., late last month, Andrew and Maureen Lipko were found dead of natural causes.

The Connecticut medical examiner’s office reported that the elderly husband and wife both had heart disease, and Maureen had diabetes.

Neighbors called police after realizing they hadn’t seen anyone come out of the house in weeks. Former New Haven schoolteacher Phyllis Grenet says that wasn’t unusual for the couple. Andrew Lipko occasionally would leave the home wearing a medical mask in one of his old cars; his wife was almost never seen.

“You can be together and alone,”

Murthy says.

Although older people reported being less lonely than the youngest respondents, the Cigna study confirmed studies that said more than 40% of people over 65 reported being occasionally lonely.

Caregivers of seniors with cognitive impairment often experience loneliness and isolation, whether they are seniors themselves or an adult child caring for a parent with dementia, says Nicole Fowler, a Regenstrief Institute investigator at the Indiana University School of Medicine who studies the caregiver experience.

Spouses in particular may have an enhanced sense of loneliness because their partner is still there but can no longer interact as he or she might have in the past.

“They’re experiencing the loss even before that person is gone, which brings that unique sense of loneliness,” Fowler says.

The caregiver experiences what Fowler called “anticipatory grief.”