Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation

A Surgeon General’s Advisory is a public statement that calls the American people’s attention to an urgent public health issue and provides recommendations for how it should be addressed. Advisories are reserved for significant public health challenges that require the nation’s immediate awareness and action.

This advisory calls attention to the importance of social connection for individual health as well as on community-wide metrics of health and well-being, and conversely the significant consequences when social connection is lacking. While social connection is often considered an individual challenge, this advisory explores and explains the cultural, community, and societal dynamics that drive connection and disconnection. It also offers recommendations for increasing and strengthening social connection through a whole-of-society approach.

The advisory presents a framework for a national strategy with specific recommendations for the institutions that shape our day-to-day lives: governments, health care systems and insurers, public health departments, research institutions, philanthropy, schools, workplaces, community-based organizations, technology companies, and the media.

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