By John Salak –
The good news is that the loneliness and isolation many older Americans experienced during the height of the pandemic has lessened and returned to pre-pandemic levels. Unfortunately, more than one-third of mature adults still suffer loneliness. Beyond this, nearly as many feel isolated.
Those mature adults dealing with major physical or mental health issues suffer at even higher rates than others, according to a national study by the University of Michigan Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation.
The findings, while an improvement over pandemic levels, underscore a major threat for these adults. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns that loneliness and isolation increase the risk of heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, depression and anxiety, suicide, self-harm and dementia. The combined impact increases the risk of death.
The university research was based on a review of six years of data from the National Poll on Healthy Aging. Starting in 2018, the poll asked older adults nationwide how often they felt they lacked companionship or were lonely and isolated.
The data show that in 2024, 33 percent of older adults felt lonely some of the time or often in the past year, about the same as the rate in 2018. This is a marked decline from the years in between when as many as 42 percent of older adults reported loneliness.
Similarly, 29 percent of older adults said they felt isolated some of the time or often in 2024, just above the rate of 27% seen in 2018. In comparison, they reported feeling isolated in the early months of the pandemic.
“At the surface, this might seem like great news, that we’re back to where we were before COVID-19 struck. But that baseline was not good, and it was especially bad for some groups of older adults who continue to have very high rates of loneliness and social isolation,” said Dr. Preeti Malani, the study’s lead. “One of the biggest differences now is that we have greater recognition of the impact of loneliness and isolation on health especially as we age.”
Not surprisingly, those adults dealing with health issues reported even greater levels of loneliness.
The percentage of adults, for example, reporting fair or poor mental health who said they were lonely was 75 in 2024, up slightly from 2018. The percentage of those reporting fair or poor physical health who also claimed they were lonely was 53, up from 50 in 2018. The percentage of those not working or receiving disability income who reported being lonely was 52, up from 38 in 2018.
The percentage of those with the same issues who also claimed to feel isolated was similarly up in 2024 from 2018.
“These trends make it clear: clinicians should see loneliness and isolation as a key factor in their patients’ lives, especially those with serious physical or mental health conditions,” noted poll director Dr. Jeffrey Kullgren, an associate professor of internal medicine at the university.
“We should consider screening our patients for these issues and connecting them with resources in their communities, whether that’s a senior center, Veterans’ groups, volunteering opportunities or services offered by an Area Agency on Aging or other community organizations,” he said.
