Loneliness Across the Lifespan: Understanding the Causes and Reducing the Impact Through Intergenerational Contact

This research will explore the causes of loneliness across the lifespan and assess whether loneliness can be reduced through intergenerational contact. This is a timely topic given that loneliness has now been identified as a significant public health issue in the UK. It is associated with mental health issues such as social anxiety and depression and a heightened risk of death that is comparable to risk factors like smoking and alcohol consumption.

Loneliness is widespread in the UK, with 40% of young adults and 27% of over-75s reporting that they often or very often feel lonely. Significant numbers of children and adolescents also report loneliness. In October 2018, the UK launched the first cross-Government loneliness strategy to help people in all age groups build connections. This is a socially and economically sound decision, as every £1 spent on effective loneliness interventions delivers £2-3 in savings. Despite this increased interest, there is still limited research into the subjective causes of loneliness and a lack of effective interventions.

Loneliness is a feeling of distress that arises when a person perceives their social connections to be inadequate or unfulfilling. This is different from social isolation, where social connections are objectively limited or absent. Children, younger adults, and older adults all experience loneliness despite differing levels of social isolation, indicating that different factors might contribute to loneliness at different life stages. However, there is a lack of research allowing people to organically describe the causes of their loneliness, or the impact of different causes.

This research will address the current gap in knowledge by using a collective intelligence methodology which allows groups of children, younger adults, and older adults to identify and structure the causes of their loneliness. This method, Interactive Management, will map relations between causes of loneliness generated by these groups to create a structure for causes at each developmental stage. This will add valuably to current understandings of loneliness across the lifespan and help inform the creation of effective interventions.

Intergenerational contact may be an effective means of reducing loneliness in younger and older adults. Intergenerational programmes connect younger and older people in formal settings to share mutually beneficial experiences. They can reduce depression and increase social connectedness, life satisfaction, and hope for the future. Most intergenerational interventions include children as the younger group, but research suggests that those with university-aged individuals are most effective. Given that adults under 25 and over 65 have the highest levels of loneliness in the UK, interventions that bring together these groups may be particularly beneficial.

There is a need for research which tracks targeted outcomes in both age groups while considering the factors which bring about loneliness. It is also important to incorporate the needs and opinions of service users into the development of interventions to ensure that they are appropriate and effective. As such, this research aims to include co-design sessions with younger and older adults in order to develop an intergenerational intervention to reduce loneliness. A two-arm trial of the intervention will then examine whether intergenerational contact reduces loneliness in younger and older adults. Questionnaires will assess whether the intervention impacts loneliness and related psychosocial outcomes and interviews will explore participants' views of the intervention. These findings can inform academic and government policy and practice to provide psychological, health, and economic benefits in the UK and abroad. Overall, this research will add to our knowledge of how loneliness arises and shed light on how communities, researchers, and governments can create acceptable and effective loneliness interventions.